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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522496">The Martyr Effect</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrellVerse/pseuds/DrellVerse'>DrellVerse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Drell, Mass Effect, Among Other Sorties [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 05:34:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>212,324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrellVerse/pseuds/DrellVerse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lana Shephard found more to the story than just simple crucification. Even that was with reason, according to her father. Having enemies, crew, reunited with her son, and found one who is devoted to her, Lana explores the new and old memories, falling further down the rabbit hole. Will she go after Misrephoth-Maim? Will she find out what happened on Omega? What is the truth about Graine? And what happened to the Corsairs? Will Foundations come into play? Will Strang go after her lover, confidante, and friend? What is the purpose of Quoyle and the cohen? Can Cerberus provide daycare? The story has made it to Kahje and Tali, Wrex, Reapers, and more await two lovers to finish celebration. In the next leg of the story, Lana’s still going. . . And she’s got a baby on board.</p><p>[A/N] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Relationship Revealed As Story Progresses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Drell, Mass Effect, Among Other Sorties [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009026</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>241</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tears fell. Warm tears, slow and quick. Something for her to let go.</p><p>Warm as the fire in her chest. Slow as the agony of defeat over years. As brief as her utterance against wrong.</p><p>Lana Clarke was nearly three years relieved from the call of duty. Her service record in flames, left to smolder in her bitterness. The medal that once adorned her breast was gone, hidden elsewhere—the Star of Terra.</p><p>Slow was her passage from the bed, fit but wounded by the grave injury to her mind, spirit, and heart. She had served since she was eighteen.</p><p>She made a trip to the bowl to throw up. Straining against being too loud for her son to hear, Lana leaned her weight into the toilet on rigid arms.</p><p>And wretched.</p><p>It had not been her fault. She’d been scapegoated. A war hero, now nothing, or so she believed. Three years ago to date, October 1st, 2183, had been Eden Prime. It had been the beginning of a bad end to an illustrious career. The Alliance of Colonized Systems to Humanity had dropped her like a ton of bricks. She had been a marine, an N7; executive officer on a stealth-class ship, and damn near made Spectre. Then Eden Prime had gone to Hell, and with it went her future. She hadn’t left behind anyone under her watch, but as the bodies of both a corporal named Richard Jenkins, and a Turian—one of the avian-crustacean hybrids— Nihlus Kryik, a Council Spectre, burned with the dead colonists of Eden Prime, an enemy and a deadly secret escaped.</p><p>It was a bitter defeat, though the Geth employed to attack the colony were repulsed and eliminated by Lana’s hard fighting.</p><p>A Star of Terra medal would not have been enough to save her from the fall-out. Once adorned in militant regalia, armor, headgear, and guns, Lana’s wardrobe consisted of only pants, T-shirts, and nursing bras. She was an attractive woman with hair down past her shoulders, dark and sleek like the eyebrows over shrewd green eyes and Eurasian features, dark skin of olive tone where battle scars did not linger. She was still fit and trim, more curvaceous since having child. Though she had love she had never known for a small boy of twenty-three months, her bitterness was still in her heart and not a day passed she did not think of the Council or the Alliance. She’d had to hide her pain and her anguish to be a mother, but a wound festers, and it rotted its way out and affected her marriage to David’s father, William Clarke. He was not vanished; they weren’t abandoned, but he lived separately, and only came by to visit his son.</p><p>Like a star she had fallen. Where she landed was Berisley, Virginia on Sol’s Earth.</p><p>Rising from the floor of the bathroom, Lana washed her mouth. It was a march to go through the motions, day in, day out, but she was necessary. Her son needed her at her best. She found her way out of the master bathroom her husband had ordered refaced, sparing no expense to make it wider, marbleized, crystalized with stand-in shower and hot tub for their use, his and her sinks, a vanity stretched between these. She passed her king-size bed on the left, hesitating to stop and consider whether or not to make it.</p><p>
  <em>Of course.</em>
</p><p>She did, folding, lifting, tucking the corners until the bed was right. She lunged for both her pillows, body tense in planking as she propped herself on one arm stiffened into the bed comforter, the other free to arrange both heavy pillows. Her husband slept using the one on her near right. A scar ran up her right arm, a blaze of battle. The tissue was knotted and thin compared to the rest of the uninterrupted skin. The light through the third story window of her habitat was gray and sober, adding to the dreariness of mood. The scar on her arm was accompanied by a scar on her right leg, a reminder of better times despite having David. Her mind, however, was focused on a mantra to keep her moving from task to task to get the morning accomplished and keep her distracted. Her spirit was disturbed by the fact she knew what day it was. There was a pestering ache in her hands and chest at what it meant. She was no longer a soldier, but a mother and a civilian.</p><p>For eleven years, all she had known were guns, ammo, formation, uniform, commands, ships, tactics. All she did now was read child-raising books, make meals for health and comfort instead of survival, and answer calls by solicitors and playdates.</p><p>The laughter of a little boy made Lana smile. She knelt at the door to her son’s bedroom, opening her arms to hold him as he toddled over. It had barely been three months after her dishonorable discharge when, pregnant with David R. Clarke to-be, she wed William at his asking.</p><p>“Momma.”</p><p>Picking up David, she carried him down the stairs to her kitchen floor and pulled closed the baby gates. Her nerves felt a little less jittery, having purged into the bathroom earlier. She knew she would have to go again before the day was through. It was like this every year since ‘83. She struggled against her own sluggishness and depression to prep food for them. She had to lean against the counter and breathe in deep, closing her eyes to lift her face to the cold light coming through her kitchen window. David was toddling between the kitchen and the sunroom, Lana trying hard not to cry in his presence. She sniffed soft as she could and quickly cuffed both eyes with the sleeve of a thick robe. The sound of his voice carried to her, bringing with it comfort.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leaning into the pod, she levered the tether to the safety harness upwards until the straps tightened on David. She had packed his diaper bag and change of clothes for daycare. She would go to work, like any other single mom. She gripped both rests beside her son, David, and kissed him on the forehead and cheek. She hated leaving him at daycare, but she knew it would make him more independent and socially adept. She had to go to work.</p><p>Having a joint income off which to live with Will was no cause for complacency. She needed a job to make ends meet, if and when he should choose to cut them off. William blamed her for making life unbearable and for pushing him away. It didn’t matter to him that she had become a disgraced war hero. He wanted her to let everything go, but she couldn’t—not with what she knew. Lana believed the end of the world was coming. Three years ago, she would say, she could have prevented it. Eden Prime, that’s where she had found out. When she could have achieved Spectre status, had Nihlus not died by the hand of Saren Arterius, another Turian agent of the Council’s elite force. Jenkins had died, but it was the death of the Spectre that had connected Saren to the attack.</p><p>Nihlus Kryik had been shot in the back.</p><p>Being an executive officer and an experienced veteran, Lana had found a survivor and begun asking questions to piece together the who, what, and how of the agent’s untimely death. The Alliance would be up at arms, she had thought, what with the sensitivity of Turian-Human relations and a Council Spectre showing up dead on a Human colony. It didn’t make sense that the Turian Hierarchy would hold the Alliance accountable: Nihlus had been murdered by another Turian, and a witness had been detained. Of course, there could be claims it had been a setup, but why would Nihlus be killed by a Human when he was there to evaluate Lana Shephard for becoming the first Human Spectre? Whom he had personally nominated.</p><p>In the end, her candidacy had been denied. It had hit her like a wall when the Alliance also let her go. All the training, the high scores, competing among the elite of her primary academy. Graduating to be invited into the special class of elite marines, the N7s out of ICT. Excelling beyond the Interplanetary Combatives Training to be noticed by David Anderson, an Alliance Captain freshly minted for the brand new Normandy SR-1.</p><p>The Normandy, the first of her kind, and Lana had been one step away from full command.</p><p>Compared to that, Spectre agent would have been icing on the cake. Eden Prime had been the end to all of that.</p><p>The descent from the galaxy’s most celebrated Human had been a nosedive into Hell. She would never come out of it. She was locked down from the stars. The world would move on and she would be forgotten.</p><p>This is what she thought.</p><p>Anyone could recognize her if they saw her face. No one dared to talk to the woman walking around protectively over a blond haired, green eyed toddler. People moved out of her way when she looked at them. Even the police who pulled her pod over for going ten miles above the speed limit let her go with a warning.</p><p>Dropping off David at his daycare six miles from their home, she saw the face of a dead marine in that of a man passing her on the sidewalk as she returned to her pod. A Turian’s white patterned face, lying half in a pool of blue, sickly blood, spread through her mind.</p><p>
  <em>You had to go ahead of us, Kryik. Couldn’t just shorten your stride for the Humans. Did they ever find your body and send you to Palaven? Or could I go back to Eden Prime and find your name on a tombstone. . .</em>
</p><p>She had business to attend with the office at the Intergalactic Magistrate.</p><p>“I’d like to request access to records on a Spectre.”</p><p>She gave the Salarian magistrate a hot look in reaction to his own unique glare.</p><p>“Still beating that dead horse, Commander?”</p><p>Images of dead men and women passed through her eyes.</p><p>“It’s the anniversary of a massacre on Eden Prime,” she said, swiping a tablet off the Salarian’s counter and typing in a search field SAREN ARTERIUS. “Someone’s got to raise the dead and let them know they’re remembered.”</p><p>She gave the tablet to him, and an icy stare.</p><p>“I don’t know what you think you’re going to find, Commander. The Spectre you inquire about every month since November 2184 has kept his hands out of trouble. You seem to think he slipped a fast one on the Council.”</p><p>“He’s a murderer and a witness to things I’ve seen.”</p><p>The Salarian rolled his big yellow eyes.</p><p>“And you still think he led an army of Geth to attack the colony.” He made a noise with his wrinkled throat. “As if Geth would follow an organic.”</p><p>“He was there! Leading them! I know it!” She slapped the counter with her palm. “Just give me his latest ‘official’ update to the Council!”</p><p>The Salarian jumped when her skin hit the surface of the marble. He hurried away and returned a few minutes later with an OSD drive that he placed on the counter.</p><p>“Eden Prime was a colony begging to be attacked by raiders if not Geth,” he hissed, sliding the OSD to her beneath his finger.</p><p>Lana grabbed the device and snatched the Salarian’s circuit translator beneath his jaw in a fist, twisting the circular tool to bring him closer to her face.</p><p>“If it weren’t for the fact I have a reason to hold me back from slamming your head into this counter, I’d have done it by now. I fought to protect those people that bastard Saren needlessly butchered. You ever heard of Dragon’s Teeth? Even raiders wouldn’t have the stomach to do what the Geth and Saren did. Eden Prime or Sur’Kesh, no one deserves to be butchered simply because they’re on the frontier of space.”</p><p>The defender of the Skyllian Blitz walked off, having released the Salarian and jammed the optical storage device into her pants pocket.</p><p>
  <em>Even being a victor, she still has many defeats waiting ahead of her.</em>
</p><p>A cold rain had started to drizzle as Lana met with it, leaving the IMO. An umbrella opened and shielded her from the sprinkle.</p><p>Lana instinctively backed up, her eyes flaring with biotic light.</p><p>“You no longer wear the armor or the rifle, but you are yet the ever ready soldier.”</p><p>Armed with nothing else but an umbrella and a long coat, alien black eyes looked out at her from a green and humanoid face. His shoulders were broad enough to fit into pauldrons, the heavy mashers of enemy chests and vertebrae Lana wore once into combat mêlées. He removed a small visor from over his left eye and tucked this inside his coat somewhere.</p><p>Lana’s first instinct was to survey for a piece: a hand gun, blade, or electronic device that could deliver a bowel-loosening discharge.</p><p>
  <em>She wears only pants, jeans as they call them, a short-sleeved shirt under a long-sleeved pattern. No coat because she prefers to feel the cold air through her clothes, a vestige of days waiting on missions, and the coat is in the pod. The pants are blue, loose. She has lost weight since the child was born.</em>
</p><p>A slip of something cream and thin appeared through the reveal of flesh at her collarbone, the shirt layers bunched and rising enough for him to detect it as she turned towards him, hunching her shoulders against the rain.</p><p>The gray of her V neck began to darken with water drops. The outline of a structured article underneath the inner shirt was becoming obvious.</p><p>His eyes ran down the length of her and up to her face. Her hair was tied back in a bun, tendrils of brown curling under the nape of her neck. It was a few shades darker than her skin. The slender eyebrows were lowered, suspicious, the pupils of the calm green eyes contracted, alert. She had the cheekbones of the Cantonese, the nose of shrewd judgement—straight and keen. The mouth and jaw of a woman with fierce opinion and set determination. There was a small scar on her chin that if rubbed with a small thumbnail of medical gel would fade, but he suspected he knew why she kept it. And why she kept the battle scars on her right arm and leg from Elysium.</p><p>“Are you still training, Miss Shephard?”</p><p>He could see that she was, albeit she was more filled out in the hips and bust compared to the vids he had watched. That would be attributed to the past pregnancy and child.</p><p>The sound of her maiden name conjured a sharp, frightening stab of hope.</p><p>“Is that a come on or are you trying to get my hopes up that you’re a recruiter,” she asked through the rain, which fell faster, “because I hate to disappoint you. . . I’ve got a toddler.”</p><p>She had wistfulness in her tone, yet there was resolve too. The call to duty was strong, but the call to motherhood was stronger.</p><p>“Do you ever wonder if or how you could serve again, Ms. Shephard?”</p><p>“All the time, not that it’s practical. The Council saw to that. The Alliance. . . I’m settled down though. No one has to worry about me making a trip to the Citadel.”</p><p>“Tell me, Commander, is it easy to hide your pain from your child?”</p><p>Her jaw flexed, whether by anger or embarrassment, he figured both.</p><p>“You learn to hide a lot of things when you’re a parent. . . What do you want? Who are you?” Her curiosity was getting the better of her. She had only engaged his questions because she welcomed the banter from an attractive stranger, but now the conversation was taking a turn she didn’t feel comfortable just letting go. She steered back for control. Having argued with Will more than once, she was comfortable with making demands. William would always resist.</p><p>
  <em>Would this guy? Shit, what did I get myself into. . .</em>
</p><p>“Come walk with me, Commander. I have room to spare,” he said, offering the umbrella again.</p><p>His politeness persisted. Lana abandoned her better sense and took up his left under the big black umbrella. They kept a distance of precisely three inches between their sides nearest the other. Though he did touch her hand once, and briefly, to guide her around a deepening puddle.</p><p>“I have a son, too. He does not hinder me from my service. . . Koshisigre Nupura.”</p><p>“Lana Clarke. Former Special Ops.”</p><p>“I know who you are, Ms. Clarke, if you prefer to go by that name. I have come to discuss with you an opportunity. One that will take you far from Berisley, Virginia, and well back into the fight.”</p><p>Her eyes dropped to the pavement, rain pattering and rippling puddles. Streams raced into the outlets lining the street. She had the urge to throw up again.</p><p>“I’m not a free woman to just go where I please, Mr. Nupura. Child or not, it would be improper of me to take leave of <em>my</em> child.” Her lips formed a bitter frown.</p><p>They walked along in silence until he stopped and turned.</p><p>“I don’t think you believe that. You can take him with you if you want. It must be harder on you to force yourself into believing that you are stuck here, Commander. Every day, waking to the same sky, the same routine. Going to bed at the same time, never wanting to sleep. Is it worth it, Ms. Clarke?”</p><p>“It’s how it is,” she snapped. “I have a boy who depends on me.”</p><p>“He doesn’t need you, Lana. He has a father.”</p><p>“I’m his mother. A boy needs his mother.”</p><p>Somehow this affected him, for he said nothing more. Lana found herself alone again, the mysterious Mr. Nupura having bid her goodbye at her pod. He left her with a phone and said to call when she changed her mind. Lana went home, feeling sick, and after throwing up in her toilet the second time, took a shower and prepared for work.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Lana, I want custody of David.”</p><p>The call was from her husband. William.</p><p>“Will. . . This is unexpected.”</p><p>“I know, Lana, and I’m sorry, but I think a divorce is in our best interest and you are not fit to be mothering him with the way you behave. I received a call today from the Magistrate’s office. You’re embarrassing yourself and us, me in particular.”</p><p>“Because of the courthouse?”</p><p>“Lana, I have to work with these people. They’re not there for you to abuse every month. It impacts my cases, my relationships. It has to stop.”</p><p>“I have to do this, Will. It’s life at stake.”</p><p>“God damn it, Lana! When are you going to learn? Do I have to take everything away?”</p><p>Her eyes widened, turning near glass, ready to shatter with tears. She felt the need to get back inside the shower and scald herself to death. Or drown herself in the tub. To think she was losing them. First Will, now David. . .</p><p>“I’ve given you everything, Lana. The house, the pod. I even pay your bills and let you raise David alone. We both should be doing it.”</p><p>The silence stretched. William sighed on the other end of the call. She remembered times when they lay together, talking about the future on their bed. She glanced at the empty side from the bathroom.</p><p>“Will, you know how much I love you and David. I’m doing this because of you.”</p><p>“Then reconsider! This is tearing our family apart, Lana! Can’t you see?”</p><p>“I need you to have faith in me.”</p><p>“I do! Time and time again you refuse to bend, to fold, to let it go! Every little detail that Turian makes, you just have to know! Let it drop, Lana! It’s over and you know I’m right!”</p><p>“You’re wrong,” she wept. “You’re wrong, Will.”</p><p>The papers arrived the next day, already signed and sealed by Will’s notary and attorney. Lana played with David on the pillows of her bed, enjoying what time she had left with him. Will was an attorney, and he had lawyer friends. Lana had none. She kneaded her eyes, wondering why she was doing what she was. Could she really just turn the other cheek, pretending for it not to come, the death of the world? She reached for the phone as David tickled her feet. The phone the Drell had given her to call. She passed it from hand to hand, wondering, thinking. Wrapping her arms around her son, she cuddled him with his giggles and soft little hands, nuzzling his nose. Ensconcing them in the sheets, she fell asleep with him tight to her chest, enjoying the last she would ever feel of him. Were others so able to walk away from that which they loved? What had this Koshisigre Nupura left behind, he who had a son who didn’t hinder him?</p><p>She made arrangements the next day to move all of David’s record’s to his husband’s care. She packed all of David’s belongings and favorite toys, his comforts, pictures of her and him, some with Will, who arrived with a pod, sleek and black around mid-evening. It was the first night Lana would sleep by herself, without her boy. She picked up the phone on the table, pressed SEND, and listened to the dial tone ring once before he picked up.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ms. Clarke.”</p><p>“It’s Shephard now. They took my son. My husband divorced me. You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”</p><p>She checked the time. 2000. It would be David’s bedtime. Tears welled in her eyes over not being there to kiss him goodnight. She covered her eyes with her arm, laying on her back, listening to the quiet breathing on the other line.</p><p>“Do you need comfort, Ms. Shephard?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>She swallowed passed the lump in her throat and suddenly sobbed.</p><p>“I feel so helpless. I can’t fight Saren. I can’t keep my kid. My marriage is ruined. And I work a part-time job. I feel like I’m falling to pieces.” So stretched thin, like cotton.</p><p>He listened, whether or not he did she actually couldn’t tell, but there was silence except for the breathing. Somehow it did what it was meant for: to keep <em>her listening</em>.</p><p>Lana’s eyes were attracted to a light pulling up through the window, as though a pod had recently banked and settled in to park. She rolled out of bed and walked to her window, pushing wide the curtains, hoping it might be Will and David. Her home was on an acre plot with nothing else to see besides trees, houses in the distance but not too far one couldn’t reach these on foot, and the mysterious line of the inner barrier protecting the neighborhood from extensive pollution beyond the sheen. There were no stars in the usual expanse of sky. Only a thin cloud cover that would move eventually, she could tell by the way it coasted above her sight. It looked stark and lonely, the lawn, untended for several days, and the bushes in the little round garden at the entrance to the gate of their drive was shivering in the light of parked pod. She could guess that it was gray. The skin on her right arm tingled where the scar had been for so long. She felt that same tingle in her same side leg as her skin tightened, prickling with alarm.</p><p>“Do you see them?”</p><p>“This can’t be happening. . . It’s too much coincidence.”</p><p>“Get ready, Commander.”</p><p>She only hoped David and Will were alright. Thinking quickly, Lana threw off her robe and pulled open the drawers,literally jumping through her clothes to wear something easy to move in and warm for the night. It had to be black, or dark, not light and bright for easy detection. The words in her head were from Anderson and bootcamp. <em>Fight not the enemy in your head. That is doubt. Fight the enemy who wakes only to harm. That is his purpose. Your job is to be cruel, practical, merciful, pragmatic when necessary. But never, ever, go to bed thinking that you’re out of the fight. Fool you, should your enemy arrive, thinking to put you out of your misery. They will if you give up. Fight. Fight. Fight. . . </em>Lana kept moving, hitting the closet next and pulling out her gun safe. She had three pistols, Hammer Eights, with cylindrical chambers on each side to form the figure eight. The bullets punched through armor. Lana had ever been ready. Sliding on her boots, she grabbed a flashlight, prepped food bag with dry vittles, her coat, and armed with three guns and spare ammo cartridges in the holster over her back and chest, Lana went out her son’s backroom window and down to the back of the lawn. She cursed when she realized she’d forgotten her ID, but had an extra license for carrying concealed firearms in her gun jacket. It might frighten some people, but she would be able to pass for inspection if she needed to be identified. Not that she felt it would be a good idea, given her circumstances.</p><p>She kept to the side of the house, closing off the phone so it would not ring and give her away, and sidled to the next entrance to the house. She checked her pockets for keys and wallet, an omnitool cuff and OSD from the magistrate’s office. Everything was where she’d left it, except the flying license.</p><p>She felt some comfort in the fact he’d been watching her, but discomfort from the same. Koshisigre had been witness to everything, but at least he’d given her some warning. Still, if he could see the front of her house, that meant he was hiding somewhere out front as well.</p><p>Three days after Eden Prime, the massacre that left her devoid of an old life, and it was coming back to collect her. Someone was at least. There was an itch in her trigger finger as she unholstered her first weapon, a pistol, and crept closer to the side entrance to the house. It was Wednesday, October 4th.</p><p>
  <em>About God damn time.</em>
</p><p>Take the soldier out of the army, but the soldier never truly leaves. Lana peered through the window, ducking low against the door to see if there was any movement at the front of the house. From her vantage, she could see clear to the front door, across the living room from the side entrance. She waited, biting her teeth together. The mother in her flamed that if this was not the day her child had been taken from her by his father, that these hunters would be here while they slept. Had it just been her alone, and it was, she would have been happy to go in her sleep, but because she had called the phone, her alertness had made her privy to the arrival of the dead. For to come to Lana’s home in the dark hours of the night in cold autumn, they surely had to be dead men walking. Or Aliens.</p><p>For eleven years, from 2172 to 2183, Lana had trained to be a fighter and one of the best. One had to be criminally insane to come stalking her door. Anyone smart would have met her in broad daylight, where she was restricted to more prudence and civilian legalities. But these people leaving that pod had come hailing her at night, stepping onto her lawn, probably working at the door, and violating the sanctity of a homeowner’s respite. Touching each of her three guns like the Holy Trinity, she made a cross and an oath and prayed.</p><p>That her aim be true.</p><p>Six cartridges, two for each gun, well maintained and ready with practice in the emptiness of her backyard. She stayed low and decided it would be better to greet them, rather than waiting in the side yard. Checking her jacket to make sure it hadn’t caught on the hedge circumventing her house, Lana stilled, suspecting she heard the issued orders whispered by those moving around the back.</p><p>Another pod floated down in the rear yard, this one with lights off.</p><p>
  <em>Must be the smarter of the bunch. Attract me to the front with the lights on that pod, attack me from the back. Someone’s being in charge would be at the rear if they wanted their hands dirty, but I’d grant that he’s not even among them if he’s really clever.</em>
</p><p>Lana quietly unlocked the side entrance and went inside, glad she’d kept the hinges oiled. A flashlight blinked on and off once through the window at the front.</p><p>She read the first signal and waited, perching behind the door.</p><p>“Come on in,” she breathed through lower mouth.</p><p>
  <em>Rule number one, always welcome your expected guests with an open door.</em>
</p><p>The first shadow to arrive worked the handle, squeezing and depressing the latch. The door parted the jamb, swinging outward. Lana let him walk in two steps farther, seeing he was alone, before grabbing the Halberd’s barrel. She could tell by the arcing support of the rifle’s silhouette in the dim lighting. Forcing it down, she forced his chin up with the opening of her Hammer Eight and hissed softly, “Where are you going, big fella? Breaking and entering’s a crime in these parts of the galaxy.”</p><p>A flanged voice reverberated, “The door was open.”</p><p>“A wise guy. That’s great. I like a little sense of humor with my target practice.” She wrenched the Halberd rifle away, not setting it down. “How many are there outside?”</p><p>“Enough to make sure you don’t get out of here, lady.”</p><p>“Are you worth anything to them?”</p><p>She saw a pair of mandible shadows flare. Being taller, the intruder took the advantage and chopped down with his arm. Lana blocked his savage attack, narrowly missing what she assumed were the hard ridges of a Turian arm.</p><p>A moment later, the door flew outward with a body sprawling on the lawn. A flare of white illuminated Lana in the living room before all was dark again.</p><p>The front door opened.</p><p>Making a wall out of air, Lana unleashed dark energy through the control of her biotic amps, bowling backward the first men through the front door. She saved her ammo, relishing the release of suspended power after so long. She tailored a second lift to accompany the first, and by the way of the sudden grunts and shouts for order, she was making sure her guests felt welcomed.</p><p>A crack of thunder broke through to her ears, followed by three more in metered succession. She wondered who it was.</p><p>Following her enemy out onto the lawn, she went to each body and rolled them over, checking for survivors. A bone-crushing biotic wall was no trifle of cuts and bruises. It was akin to having been thrown into concrete, only instead of you being thrown, it was the wall thrown at you.</p><p>She moved aside a broken visor, trying to make out the bloodied face crushed in by her power and the collapsed shell. She found three more bodies for a total of six. If there were six in one pod, then there would be six more in the back. She’d already killed one. Where were the five? And then the pops of thunder. Four.</p><p>That left one.</p><p>Lana strode back into the house, clearing the foyer first before hunting the rest of the dark. She moved with stealth, recalling how all of her training with sixty pounds to a hundred worth in weapons, ammo, and armor made for having feet as light as a cat’s.</p><p>A light flicked on.</p><p>Someone was moving around with something heavy into the living room.</p><p>Lana aimed around the corner.</p><p>
  <em>It’s him. Looks like he brought company.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Koshisigre admired the change of dress for the woman he’d seen three days ago at the IMO. She was appropriately geared for a midnight home raid, though her hair was down around her breasts and she looked like she’d been crying. She took a long look at him, he at her, and Lana holstered her pistol. The Halberd rifle, red and black striped, leaned against the corner by the doorframe she came through. Taking it in her grip, she struck the butt of it into the agent standing in front of Koshisigre. A Turian, half a head taller than them, snarled with the placido of his two upper lips spreading apart, baring pointed fangs meant for tearing. Omnivores, Turians were not.</p><p>
  <em>And what the Hell are they doing here?</em>
</p><p>“That’s a sample of my hospitality. Were you uninvited, I’d have shot your ugly face clear off, no questions asked.”</p><p>“You’ve been waiting for this,” the Turian surmised, tight beady eyes narrowing on her face, “Waiting for death to come and visit you. Why didn’t you just let us kill you, Clarke.”</p><p>“I had a phone call keeping me up.” She winked at Koshisigre.</p><p>In the next second, the Halberd’s snap had sent the Turian to the floor, his left mandible hanging limp from the side of his face.</p><p>“Spirits, woman! What are you going to do. . . Beat me to death?”</p><p>“Who, what, where, when, why. I can guess the last two. The first three got me curious. I hate to assume you’re from Saren though it would make sense. I have an idea what you wanted to do. Where is of particular interest because as I’m sure you’re aware,” she said with her eyebrow raised, “we all have liabilities. What’s yours, my little Turian friend? You have an oviraptor sibling somewhere you’d be interested in keeping alive?”</p><p>He snickered, flicking his right mandible still intact with its tendons.</p><p>“You wouldn’t harm a fly if it didn’t pose a threat to you or what you care about. You’re too soft, Clarke. That’s why we were going to help you put yourself out of your misery.”</p><p>“What? You want to help me arrange my suicide?”</p><p>“Grief stricken mother, disgraced war vet, lost her home, her family, no job—not a decent one at least. You should have killed yourself a long time ago. You’re pathetic. The Earth media would have had a field day and then. . . Then we could have really re-opened some interesting files on Saren.”</p><p>Lana balked, looking at Koshisigre. The Turian laughed in his hoarse throat, a trilling nature of amusement. He saw her surprised expression and glowered from down below, the left mandible swinging with the movement of his jaws.</p><p>“I wanted Saren Arterius from the first time I set eyes on that Turian. I had him three years ago. And I was close. . . But then you came in after Eden Prime with that raving lunatic dockworker screaming about Turians killing Turians, and the damn visions you were crying about from the beacon you destroyed. You put a box around him, Clarke. You helped protect him. And now he’s got a Geth army and the financial backing of the Citadel Council. No one can touch him. You fucked up big time, Clarke. You and your god damn visions. The Alliance was right to trounce you. You’re nothing but trouble and incompetence.”</p><p>Lana rolled her lips and looked away.</p><p>“Right. So you’re here to kill me but make it look like a suicide and open further scrutiny into the Eden Prime affair. Okay, well, that makes a lot of sense in an incredibly imbecilic way.” She brought her gaze back to the Turian’s. “What’s your name, pal?”</p><p>“I’m not your pal. Just shoot me already.”</p><p>She punched him instead, making sure to land the damaged mandible at the joint. He hissed savagely and lunged upwards, ending his motion forward at the tip of the Halberd in the undersoft of his jaw. Lana looked up at him from the end of the rifle, holding the trigger and neck with one hand. She had to be strong to be able to hold a Turian’s Halberd one-armed, but the pressure against his throat from his impulsive decision helped tether out the strain on her arm.</p><p>“I can shoot you, or you can live to help me find Saren. This guy here’s name is Koshisigre Nupura. You may call me Lana Shephard. I gave my son into his father’s custody, who undoubtedly has a wannabe mommy waiting in a corner somewhere. You want Saren so bad you’d try and kill me to get attention on his persona? I like that. And I think I could put someone like you to some good. A little misdirected maybe, but I can whip up foolish into a mean pie, if you catch my drift.”</p><p>“I don’t. What is that? Human rubbish? Your species says the damnedest things.”</p><p>She glanced at Koshisigre, waiting silently with a large pistol in his hand, watching her and listening.</p><p>“Yeah, Humans are pretty screwed. But we fight like mothers, which means all or nothing. Now,” she said, unlocking the hammer of her Halberd and leaning back, cocking the barrel against her hip to lift the rifle away. “You in, you give me your name. You out, I’ll let him finish you because I’m bored and I need a coffee.”</p><p>She shoved the Halberd against his chest, slapping the Turian’s thick chest plate with patting hand. He stared at her back as she walked off towards the kitchen, then looked to the Drell standing nearly his head height behind him. The Turian’s horned crest only made him five inches taller.</p><p>“Is she serious?”</p><p>Koshisigre grinned. “Name, or whether or not you prefer to stand as you die. Makes no difference to me.”</p><p>“Did she . . . Did she set this whole thing up?”</p><p>They both looked into the kitchen. Lana was already prepping her coffee maker and putting together a new brew and filter.</p><p>A late night meal was made of toast and butter with eggs and ham fried on the kitchen stove. Lana ate quietly in the comfort of her kitchen while outside in the darkness of her yard, Koshisigre and the Turian, who had finally released his withheld name as Garrus, nothing more, cleaned up the carnage and hid the bodies in their pods. Lana was not in the least bit concerned what her neighbors or the authorities would think. It was the Turian Hierarchy’s mess right now if Human authorities found Turians on Earth and non-justified. Treaty violations, Klixi or what have you. Now it was up to her and Koshisigre to smuggle the irate Turian off Earth, since his ride was about to be pulverized in a ravine off in the woods by Lana’s own incendiaries and biotics.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You can’t just burn them without a funeral, for spirits’ sake,” Garrus growled over the precipice looking down into the ravine. They were in the woods an hour later, Lana carrying a canteen of freshly brewed coffee with cream. “They were my men!”</p><p>“You don’t get to make demands. You sent them on a fool’s errand, ass wipe. Besides, I leave them here to be found, you’ll lose the Turian ambassador his diplomatic immunity, plus any others skulking around Earth’s government. Now say a few words. Koshisigre and I will give you some peace. But don’t think to run off. I can snap those legs of yours with my biotics.”</p><p>“You’re a crazy fucking Human.”</p><p>She raised her canteen and turned, nodding to Koshisigre.</p><p>“Did you plan this like we think you did?” Koshisigre asked, walking silently alongside her. His boots barely whispered in the leaves.</p><p>“No, but I’m an opportunist. You gotta be to survive in my world, Koshisigre.” She sipped her canteen and let him guide them again, winding their way through the wood. She wondered where he was intending to go, but felt prepared for anything. “I learned the hard way most of my life. Difficult to get by with nothing, but easy to keep things alive when you’ve already learned how to survive the odds as a stupid, reckless teen.”</p><p>“You and my son sound like you should relate.”</p><p>She chuckled, a light husk of true laughter. Koshisigre stopped by a tree and climbed up it after indicating she should wait with a hand on her arm. He climbed, rustled the leaves only slightly, and dropped down a heavy sniper rifle to Lana’s outstretched arms. She tested the yield and grinned from ear to ear.</p><p>“This is very nice. A Bayon?”</p><p>He dropped down like a cat, silent in its fall and landing, and straightening, nodded. “How did you know?”</p><p>“I made guns in the Alliance. I studied the specs. Like I said, adaptability, opportunist, survival all goes hand in hand. I kept my eyes on a lot of specs. Needless stuff, so to speak. But I learned a few things from the field and other Aliens’ preferences. I heard Drell favor the Bayon because it can carry half its weight in the sides. Heavy as shit, but then you guys were built for Ford.”</p><p>Koshisigre’s grin twisted up the side of his face. “You are entertaining to hear, Ms. Clarke.”</p><p>“Shephard. . . or Lana. But don’t call me Mom. Only one little boy gets to call me that.”</p><p>“Shephard it is then. Shall we go back?”</p><p>They returned to the pods stored in the ravine and found the Turian, Garrus, grim and silent. He turned his blue mask toward their arrival and wiped his eyes. Lana stopped beneath him, looking as though she wanted to say sorry, but said nothing.</p><p>
  <em>Mistakes are never easy to suck down, pal.</em>
</p><p>Opening her mind, she released forth the dark energy through her amps and flowed it towards the pods. With her hands, she tossed two small capsules filled with a volatile fluid that would begin to burn on contact with metal, incinerating everything it consumed. And with it, she added one more item from the corner of her inside jacket pocket.</p><p>A star fixed with golden wreaths in a circular disc landed with a clunk on one of the bodies. The chemical set to work, eating and oxidizing with frightening speed. Lana, Koshisigre, and Garrus turned, striding off toward the residence, the heat burning at their backs in seconds. It was time to leave, and hopefully, if anyone found the Star of Terra medallion, they would think she had been consumed, too, in the fire. But Lana doubted it would last with the thamthrite incendiary liquid. Maybe one day she would come back. All she knew was that if she didn’t accomplish what she was setting out to do, everyone’s future would go up as fast as that inferno they left back in the ravine.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana laughed for the first time in years. Aside from being amused by her son’s antics and faces, Will’s occasional shining gems, she hadn’t really enjoyed a good rollick.</p><p>“I haven’t had such a good roll since I caught my son stealing cookies from a pantry closet,” she said, shoulders shaking as she rocked forward to the table of Delia’s Café inside the Orionia launch house. Lana clamped down on the glass mouth of her bottle, snickering softly to herself as travelers embarked and disembarked wherever they were want to go in the giant port to the gateway of heavens.</p><p>Her smile was rich and bitter, Koshisigre thought, watching how much she consumed. Was Lana a drinker? He hadn’t seen anything mentioned in her dossiers. Hunched up beside him in an oversized hoodie sweater was the Turian, Garrus, who looked little more than mildly incognito and a stifling less than Flagroso Turianno.</p><p>“Right now, my son is sleeping in bed, safe and warm, while his momma’s out drinking a beer with two Turians—I mean, one,” she snuffed, pulling back another beer. She blinked, long and hard.</p><p>Koshisigre saw the look that said it all, that she was definitely thinking of getting drunk.</p><p>“Lana, why don’t you talk about where you intend to go once we reach port on the ISS.”</p><p>“I’m going to leave you two and set out on my own.”</p><p>Koshisigre and Turian stared at her, not sure if she was telling the truth or not.</p><p>“After all that?” Garrus spluttered. His mandible was still damaged.</p><p>“It’ll be a new year in less than three standard Earth months, my boys. That means I’m starting early on my new year’s resolutions. I don’t think you will ever understand how important it is to me to get Saren, and I’m flattered that you have both come looking to either hire or kill me,” she winked at Garrus, “but it’s time I got going. David’s in good hands and I won’t be a burden to him or his father.”</p><p>“You’re a disgrace,” said Garrus, snaring his mandible on the inside of the hoodie. He bad temperedly unhooked it and leaned across the table they were seated at. “All you think about is you. It’s why you mucked up everything to begin with. Save the Star of Terra’s pricey reputation!”</p><p>“Those be big words you’re using, Turian. Keep your mandible flapping like that and I might kick that cloaca with a well deserved dark energy field.”</p><p>“What are you going to do when your son finds out you’re alive and ran away? Huh? You going to cry and bitch and moan about Saren then too? Or your husband’s bound to realize sooner. Isn’t he some big wig Alliance auditor?”</p><p>“My son isn’t any of your concern.” She didn’t want to think about it either, the fact that one day her boy might ask and find out what he didn’t want to know, but she couldn’t not do what she intended. No one else would.</p><p>Picking up her beer, she walked out onto the concourse and looked towards the stairs leading up to the launch shuttle. The main floor was filling with passengers and she considered the security checking IDs and bags. Something told her that the moment she ascended those steps and took that shuttle, there would be no going back. Permanently.</p><p>
  <em>Come on, Lana, don’t back out now.</em>
</p><p>She didn’t let go when someone attempted to remove the beer from her grip. “Koshisigre.” She relinquished the bottle to him, Koshisigre gesturing back to the Turian at their table.</p><p>“If you need to relax, I can think of much better ways besides drinking in the middle of the port’s main thoroughfare.”</p><p>She grinned half-heartedly at the perceptive Drell. “You been watching me for a while, have you.”</p><p>He nodded. “Though until tonight, I have never seen you drink while on travel.”</p><p>“I’m a little nervous, is all. Leaving David, Will. . . Earth. . .” She stopped to turn and look at the countdown to the next launch. It was barely 4:00AM. Every day she had woken in her home at this time with the anxiety she was letting the enemy slip away, and now she was here on the cusp of making the decision that would alter that course, she was afraid to let the other side of it, her family, slip irrecoverably beyond her reach. 2183. . . Three years already of a life ended, a new one begun.</p><p>“How do you do it, Koshisigre? You said you have a son, I imagine a wife. . . How do you leave them to go so far as here?”</p><p>“My demons are at peace, Lana. I have settled my loose ends with them. My son is older, much older than yours. And my wife passed away long ago.”</p><p>She turned her eyes to him, a new light by which to consider. Breathing in deeply, Koshisigre held his breath though a small straight noise that held close to his face over fullish lips of soft scale and divided sections along the plate making up most of his expressive muscles. He really did have sad hooded eyes, tinted with sunglass lenses that revealed a browning of irises she could see were green. The eyes looked back at her, causing Lana to lift her chin as if she were being appraised. Black eyes that could make her feel cold, but as she was beginning to learn more about Koshisigre, she experienced a warming. She still didn’t know why he was following her, or why she was interested in knowing, but for some reason on the sidewalk the other day as he had held open his umbrella to her, or maybe it was someone else’s that he’d stolen, who could tell, his questions had opened up something in her.</p><p>“Will my son be okay?” she suddenly asked, frightened.</p><p>Koshisigre shrugged. “I am in no position to bring him harm or safety. . . Lana.”</p><p>Her mind jumped forward and back from the other day to David’s security to tonight’s events.</p><p>“Thank you for picking up when I called. And for helping with the crew in the back.”</p><p>He appeared genuinely surprised, as if no one should thank him for what he was obligated to do.</p><p>“I don’t know why I trust you of all people,” she went on to say, wetting her lip, “but it’s nice to believe in someone older than twenty-three months.”</p><p>They both shared a smile. Lana looked away from his stare, choked down a hard knot in her throat and quickly returned to the table, rejoining her Turian victim friend. Her leather jacket looked cumbersome on her, but good. He would have to get it adjusted for her. A trench should be fitting. The sound of her voice as she said something sharp to the Turian met his ears, and the blanched look on the Turian’s face, fallen mandibles, made Koshisigre smile something small.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They made it onto the shuttle with no issues. Garrus had a phony ID and an affidavit for visiting on account that he was Lana’s therapist, which Lana made an impression for, what with her gun toting ID. Koshisigre slipped the Turian security agent five hundred worth of credits, and then a thousand more so no questions were asked. Lana raised her eyebrow at the number that shot up from Koshisigre’s omnitool display.</p><p>“You do realize you’re supposed to be more sly,” she leaned in to say to his ear.</p><p>Koshisigre tilted his head closer to hers as he replied, “Advertising. Takes the focus off of you and Garrus if the supervisor sees his agent accepting bribes from me. I have clearance to travel from port to port. It would be hard to find fault on me.”</p><p>“I see. Thanks. Thank the man, Turian.”</p><p>“My name is,” he hushed when a security guard walked by their front row seats in the shuttle. Garrus looked obscenely comical with his nose and half-functional mandible poking out from under the hood.</p><p>“Let me know when we arrive. I’m going to grab some shut eye.” Leaning her head back against her seat, Lana closed her eyes. Within minutes, she was out, fast asleep, head nodding before she fell sideways against Koshisigre’s shoulder and hummed against the leather. Garrus looked at his intended target, sitting so close and vulnerable, not a care in the world. He snorted through his flat nostrils and narrowed his eyes impossibly smaller at Koshisigre.</p><p>“What’s your story, Drell? Why are she and you close friends?”</p><p>Koshisigre blinked at the Turian, four eyelids opening and closing perpendicularly to each other.</p><p>“I only met her three days ago.”</p><p>Garrus raised his brow plates. “And you’re like that with each other?”</p><p>“Have you ever lost someone, Garrus?”</p><p>“I just lost my whole crew to the two of you! You don’t see me getting snug with either of you.”</p><p>“Your crew aside, it was asinine to try and attack her. I have followed her far too long to let anything happen to Lana, and I also realize what she is sacrificing to go after Saren. And to let you live.”</p><p>Garrus and Koshisigre studied each other. The looks were both warning and acceptance.</p><p>“Fine. But don’t expect me to hang around. Once I get off this station and the next, I’m the one who’s going separate ways.” Garrus huffed and folded his arms, staring at the wall.</p><p>Koshisigre watched the Turian until he fell asleep in the hoodie, left mandible lightly flicking against his neck. Lowering his eyes, he sought Lana’s cheek, and the start of the small scar on the end of her chin. He applied a slight scent of her, withdrawing a whiff of her hair, natural, with some slight perfume, perhaps from a shampoo bottle.</p><p>Taking the clips on either side of her lap, he clasped her in, amused that she would forget to take care of her safety harness what with being a mother. He clipped the male and female heads together and readjusted under her cheek, ignoring the snores from the Turian nearby. It bothered him somewhat that she would think to leave her son behind when she could have taken him with her, but even he had his own reasons for making a similarly hard decision many years ago. Kolyat, his son, had been a year older than David, and the impact on his life had been painful, but at least now father and son were better. This gave him hope for Lana and her child.</p><p>“David’s diapers, Will,” she suddenly murmured next to his teness. She was asleep, however, only talking in that void between falling and actual deep slumber, and on a launch shuttle of all places. “Don’t forget the bottle. . .”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana stretched and blinked her eyes, looking at Koshisigre seated next to her. He stirred from reading a screen on his omnitool, closing the window to gaze over at her. “You awaken.”</p><p>“Are we there yet?”</p><p>“Four more hours.”</p><p>“Mmm, there was a time it was only two.”</p><p>“Yes, well, I believe the Alliance moved the station farther out from Earth due to transgalactic paths of meteors and other refuse Humanity expelled into the galaxy before First Contact.”</p><p>“Ah, hahaha, yes. True. Humans like to throw out zingers, both physical and verbal, if only to let everyone know we’re outside with you other bothersome species.”</p><p>He chuckled, loosening his shoulder. Lana glanced at the impression her cheek had made on the leather, grinned, and looked sheepish all of a sudden.</p><p>Tucking her hair behind both ears after giving herself a good scratch, she broached the Turian’s border. Garrus was still asleep, his mandible shaking with the occasional rumble of the shuttle.</p><p>“I kind of feel bad for that mouth of his, but he deserved it. Bastard. Trying to kill me in my own home.”</p><p>“He did not intend to harm David at least.”</p><p>“No, or so he says,” she replied skeptically. Lana studied the blue paint on the Turian’s maw and brow. “God, they really are quite ugly. You hear people try to sleep with them? It’s like trying to be intimate with anaphylaxis. I don’t get it. Must be something about pain and asphyxiation, sudden death.”</p><p>Koshisigre covered his eyes, shaking his head into his palm. Sliding his fingers down the sides of his tebris, he turned to her.</p><p>“You are going to need to go to the Citadel to receive some form of false identification. Word will already have spread that you are traveling in space. We could have an unpleasant greeting awaiting us.”</p><p>“I intend to make a scene, but I suppose you’re right and I should hold off until the right time,” she said in spite of his look of alarm. “Where do you suppose I should go for new IDs, Mr. Nupura?”</p><p>He liked the way she said his name with a small smile playing on her lips. Were she not such a valuable asset to the party he interacted with her on behalf of, he would consider more than friendship.</p><p>“You can assume a new identity at the Tarsus Nine. It is in the Lower Wards outside Tzadera District. I happen to have an account there.”</p><p>“So shall I take that as a confession ‘Koshisigre Nupura’ isn’t your real name, Mr. Nupura?”</p><p>“You are a clever woman, Miss Shephard.”</p><p>She twisted her lips up in an expressionless frown. Placing her hands on him, then her chin looking up along his nose into his eyes from the meaty shoulder, she contemplated what his real name truly was.</p><p>“What do you think I should call myself?”</p><p>“Whatever you want. Certainly not Koshisigre, however.”</p><p>They chuckled together, Lana leaning away from his arm. He had to confess to himself that he liked her touch. There was something reaffirming about it.</p><p>Gripping both arm rests, Lana tried to stand up and found herself surprised she couldn’t. She glanced at her lap, then up at Koshisigre.</p><p>“I harnessed you in,” he said with a smile, “seeing that you’d forgotten and were already asleep.”</p><p>“Thanks, I guess. That’s a little embarrassing I’d forget a thing like that.”</p><p>“I think you have been distracted. And tired.”</p><p>She nodded her head and checked the safety signs, indicating passengers were to remain seated. But she needed to hit the head and relieve herself, so unclasped the buckles and moved off to the front of the shuttle’s economy cabin. Koshisigre followed her with his eyes before settling these on Garrus, also watching him.</p><p>“So sweet. You going to carry her bags too?”</p><p>“She has none.”</p><p>“You know what I mean.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the stall between the exits to the cockpit and the fuselage, Lana sat on the lid of the receptacle and pulled out her omnitool. She typed a lengthy message that set tears to her eyes, and after ten minutes or more someone knocked on the door.</p><p>“Coming out.”</p><p>She typed the final words.</p><p>
  <em>. . . David, when you get this, one day you will understand that what I did was for us. I did not choose this path, but it found me. It was the only time I would ever have to force myself to look away from you. Mom</em>
</p><p>She made her business and cleaned up, washing her hands and splashing water over her face with rapid movements. She checked her eyes and sleeked her hair into a tight ponytail, looping it over itself to shorten the mane. With a puff of breath, she took one last look at the message on her omnitool, groaned, and hit DELETE. He would be too young to understand, and to send it now would be premature.</p><p>
  <em>So many miles left ahead. . . So much time lost. . .</em>
</p><p>Biting her knuckle, she pulled open the door and excused herself through the waiting passengers hoping for sooner access to the lavatories.</p><p>Koshisigre and Garrus saw the flushed look on the woman who came back to sit between them, her hair dolled up in a shiny dark loop held by a band.</p><p>“Sorry you missed me,” she said to Garrus, who snorted and stared across the seats opposite them. “What’s up with pouty mandibles over there?” she asked to Koshisigre.</p><p>“Our friend is intent on leaving us once we depart from the ISS. He says he has better business to attend.”</p><p>There was an awkward silence as Lana and Garrus stared at each other.</p><p>“You are not going anywhere, Crayola Scribbles His Face. Not until I get whatever data you have on Saren at the very most.”</p><p>“I got nothing.”</p><p>“Liar.” She poked his injured cheek.</p><p>“Listen, lady, I work alone or with my own people. Not infamous ex squad leaders rejected by the Alliance for screwing up missions and blowing up beacons.”</p><p>“Listen, ass hole,” she emphasized the ‘ass’ part, “you didn’t get a lone mother in her house. How do you think you’re going to take down Saren? Blue him to death?”</p><p>Garrus’s mandibles flared, and the effect was comical since one only hung to drag against the sweater fringe.</p><p>“What? You don’t think I can handle a Turian? My own species? Granted he’s got a Krogan army. I mean, Geth.”</p><p>Lana looked at Koshisigre. “You heard that right? He said Krogan. And Geth.” Reeling back on Garrus, “What army you going to take with you to take out a shady Spectre backed by Citadel, backed by Geth now Krogan!” she hissed through her teeth, jabbing him harshly in the throat.</p><p>Garrus rubbed the sore spot where she’d impacted. “Ouch. Are you always so deliberately a pain in the ass?”</p><p>“You saw what I could do. I see you set one foot opposite my own, I’ll airlock you into space with my own modifications to the ISS. Do you understand? I’m not tied down by regulations, ranks, family, or politics. Do I make myself clear? I am a warhead, and my intention is to blow up over Saren’s face and knock that Turian out of the galaxy, him and all the crap he’s done. So you either believe that I’ll do it and give me access to your records, or I’ll take them over your dead body.”</p><p>The silence in the cabin was not restricted to their own. At least thirty other Humans mixed with an odd assortment of Aliens were listening to the heated exchange about to conclude.</p><p>“Spirits, lady, you’re a head case.”</p><p>Lana turned and sat back into her seat. “You have no idea what that Turian did to me, Garrus. So shut the Hell up and take what I say under serious advisory.”</p><p>“Noted.”</p><p>They sat back for the rest of the trip, no one speaking a word. The passengers in the rows behind them passed worried looks to one another.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Joined at the hip, Lana disembarked with Garrus in tow, Koshisigre walking complacently along behind them. If Garrus was smart, he would keep trudging along beside her and not make any sudden breaks for a departing shuttle to the Citadel or elsewhere. Over the past two years, Lana’s travel had been restricted to stories of hear-tell from Will and his colleagues while she nursed her son and handled domestic qualities. She was astounded by the improvements made to the space station in the last decade. It was a revolving city, immense, and blustering with travelers. She saw Turians, Salarians, even some God damn Krogans making the rounds from catwalks to esplanades to lifts and shuttle sleds moving baggage and people from one end to here or there. Garrus had to actually keep her going because every time she’d stop to investigate some new appurtenance to the station, he would trip over her and stumble, catching himself.</p><p>“Would you mind where you’re stopping and going?”</p><p>“Sorry,” but she was too engrossed to really mean it. She noticed a vendor two stalls down from the edge of the main walkway cutting through the interior of the ventricular arm of the space station, and dragging Garrus along, Koshisigre minding the business, cut a path straight for it.</p><p>Lana held out her omnitool and purchased three sodas, one for herself and two for the others. She hesitated. Something about Turians needing dextro-based vitalities. She spoke to the Quarian vending the drinks and a savory sauce that could be packaged and drunk.</p><p>“You got any of that Zuppa Pop?”</p><p>The Quarian’s speaker amplifier flickered with light as a pert small feminine voice issued from the enviro suit she was wearing, purple and silk and tubing mixed in an attractive mélange.</p><p>“Last one’s forty credits.”</p><p>“Forty credits! That’s highway robbery!”</p><p>“I don’t know about highways, but a lady in a suit’s got to pay for her ride off this station. Forty credits or find something less expensive.”</p><p>“You better be worth it,” Lana said to Garrus, shelling out the credits by a sweep of her device under the Quarian’s fancy Nexus cuff. Lana grimaced when she noticed the expensive piece on the Quarian’s arm. “Business can’t be that bad if you’re wearing top of the art Nexus omni cuffs, dear.” She passed Garrus the dextro-based Zuppa Pop. He looked impressed.</p><p>The Quarian snapped two caps off the remaining bottles and handed these over to Lana and her Drell companion, flashing bright pink eyes at the Turian beaming down at her.</p><p>“You sound like you know your smart tools, ma’am. I was trapped here on the ISS after an incident and couldn’t broker a shuttle back to my fleet. So I’ve been selling snacks and drinks for three years while I save up. I can tell you I’ve had a hard time with crooks trying to steal this Nexus from me. Sadly, even the Humans give me a hard time over having something so high quality.”</p><p>“How much do you need to hire a charter?”</p><p>“Fifteen.”</p><p>“Fifteen grand?”</p><p>The Quarian nodded. “I see you like the Savant model.”</p><p>“I prefer the practicality. I’m not so advanced I need to be diagnosing health systems.”</p><p>The Quarian’s eyes glowed. “You know your stuff. Any chance you have a dual metabolizer built into that?”</p><p>“Only I wish,” Lana laughed. “Having a kid, you’d think I’d have two of those.”</p><p>“Oh? Boy or girl?”</p><p>“Boy,” Lana said wistfully. She fell quiet and handed the Quarian a credit chit from her omnitool’s storage. “Here, there’s a grand in that. Don’t thank me. You should go home if and when you can.”</p><p>She pushed it back toward Lana, shaking the metal helmet on her head. Quarians were restricted to suits that isolated them from the rest of the world. Even her fingers were gloved, tubes and filters running up and down the length of her body, which provided all of the pretty silks with a function to hide the sensitive connections.</p><p>“No handouts, ma’am. You have to buy something for me to accept your money.”</p><p>Lana smiled, liking the Quarian’s guff. “What if I gave you a job? You know how to work a Nexus and what a dual metabolizer is, you sure as hell know how to fly a ship.”</p><p>“Really? You have a ship? I’m Tali by the way.”</p><p>Lana extended her hand and the Quarian tentatively shook it with a gentle squeeze, careful not to catch her glove on Lana’s anything.</p><p>“Sorry,” Lana said, running her fingers through her long dark tresses, “I forgot my manners. Not every Alien species is so comfortable with touch in greeting for the first time.”</p><p>“It’s alright,” Tali replied, squeezing her glow into smiling eyes. “So you said you have a ship you need me to crew?”</p><p>Garrus and Koshisigre stared at Lana, issuing surprise from their raised eye physiologies.</p><p>“Yeah. Let me go check on it and I’ll be right back to extend the official invitation.”</p><p>As they parted from the vending stall with Tali moving on to greet the next customer, Koshisigre leaned over to her ear and whispered to Lana. “Since when did you happen to inherit a flying vessel here on the ISS?”</p><p>“My husband happens to keep a few extra personnel to watch his travel itinerary aboard the Villetta, which he keeps in dry dock here for standard maintenance and flying off whenever the Alliance needs him for an internal audit. He’s legally required to have it. As his ex-wife, I legally am required to possess half of all that he owns.”</p><p>“That’s all well and good,” Garrus chuffed offhand, swinging his neck to look at her boldly on, “but how do you think you’ll stand a chance of stealing it when you’re obviously not supposed to be flying around in space without permission from C-Sec?”</p><p>They all stopped as Lana turned and scrutinized him.</p><p>“C-Sec? What do you know about C-Sec?”</p><p>“I know they have you on a watch list. You might be able to board a tour to the ISS and do some duty-free shopping for dextro-based soda, but you board a shuttle anywhere off this station and you’ll have security on you like varren.”</p><p>She narrowed her eyes, arms set akimbo as she continued to appraise him.</p><p>“What organization did you work for when I screwed things up for this investigation of yours three years ago?”</p><p>Garrus’s mandible twitched.</p><p>“Citadel Security.”</p><p>He winced as she pulled his head down by the left mandible, and she flinched as the thorns bit into her palm.</p><p>“You’re C-Sec? Are you still active with them?”</p><p>“No. I went vigilante, which I blame on you.”</p><p>She released his jaw and strode off, swinging her arm as she took a sip of her soda. Garrus and Koshisigre shared looks and followed her through the crowds and vendors.</p><p>“My luck. This is perfect. Former C-Sec Turian vigilante out to get me. Drell with a sniper rifle the size of a bridge and a hookup to false identities, and a probably Quarian engineer who’s destitute and lost her way home. . .”</p><p>“What?” Garrus replied, forcing his stride to lengthen to keep up with the fast walking Human female. “You picking up too many strays?”</p><p>“Not enough.” She swung left down a bisected corridor and made around a large group of Krogan looking for a bar. Lana took a look at the signs overhead, caught what she was seeking, and beelined it around another corner. Koshisigre glanced at the wall to see the words ALLIANCE OF COLONIZED SYSTEMS BUNKER AND DOCKING and slowed to a stop.</p><p>“What is she doing?” Garrus pulled up next to him, staring down the whitewashed hall of Alliance navy vets mingling and coming to and fro of their docks. Lana was striding confidently down the middle of them without a care.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hi, I’m William Clarke’s wife. Can I have a word?”</p>
<p>The lieutenant behind the Alliance desk looked from his monitor to the attractive face staring down at him expectantly.</p>
<p>“Ma’am, I don’t think I can allow. . . Wait, did you say you’re <em>whose</em> wife?”</p>
<p>“Major William Clarke, Internal Auditing, Attorney for the Peer General. Can you inform me whether or not the Villetta is in dock?”</p>
<p>The shady eyed lieutenant flipped through his screens and squinted at the lines.</p>
<p>“It is, ma’am.”</p>
<p>“What dock is it? Three B zero one or Three C?”</p>
<p>“Ah. . . Three B zero one.”</p>
<p>“Thanks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She turned and waved. Garrus and Koshisigre set one foot into the line of the Alliance bunker and instantly the alarms went off.</p>
<p>“Spirits,” Garrus’s mandibles failed downwards, “she set us up.”</p>
<p>He looked at Koshisigre, but the Drell was gone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana feigned ignorance as she strode down the hall while a suit of marines rushed to the hapless Turian waiting at the main entrance. Turning right then left, she moved farther into the docking area, following the signs to her level above for the Villetta. And hoping there wouldn’t be a surprise on board. Will was not afraid to leave his ship in dry dock with crew permitted to sleep and keep on it.</p><p>Two more doors down and to the right, she could see the sign leading to 3B01 and picked up her pace.</p><p>“Koshi!”</p><p>She swung around his unexpected appearance, a dark look on his face as he backed her into the corridor intersecting opposite the doors.</p><p>“Koshisigre,” he corrected, nodding his chin of green at her. When Lana could back up no more, he stopped and studied her eyes and her pulse and the scent on her skin, chocking up there to be nothing but surprise and no malice toward him or anyone else for that matter. Drell noses were sensitive to certain markers produced by oil glands in other terrestrials, and he was unsure if Lana really was intent on abandoning him or trying to get him in trouble.</p><p>“That was an unplanned stunt you pulled back there. Care to clue me in next time?” He put out his arm, looking down at her. The eyelashes fluttered briefly over green eyes, her lip cocking in a playful smile.</p><p>“Got their attention, didn’t it? I needed a diversion. I figured you two would be able to help yourselves and prove that you were clean to the gentlemen. Only a misstep, right?”</p><p>He leaned closer, noses almost touching. Lana’s throat worked in a swallow. She’d never been in conflict before with a Drell, and given Koshisigre’s pleasantness, near affectionate tolerance towards her, he surprised her with the anger simmering behind his eyes. Briefly, he spoke.</p><p>“You do not know what type of ramifications my detainment may cause for me, never mind those I am affiliated with. Next time, Ms. Shephard, I would appreciate a brief before you decide to involve me involuntarily with one of your capers. Agreed?”</p><p>He held her there by the sheer presence of his body, no touch, just voice and size of presence.</p><p>Lowering his hand, he backed away and let her walk out toward the bay holding what he assumed was the Villetta, watching her watching him all the while she crossed his physique. And when she turned her face away because she had to see where she was going, Koshisigre smiled.</p><p>Letting her breathing relax and her pulse settle down, Lana rubbed the side of her neck and keyed in the code to the dock she had memorized from Will’s accounts. She spared a glance back at Koshisigre, who had returned to the wall to wait by and observe.</p><p>The interior of the hangar was narrow yet spacious. From end to end, she could see the Villetta in its turquoise and navy brilliance gleaming like a polished shoe, but its front was high as the nose of a whale, and the back was wide as the end of a flare. Lana would have never flown in a ship so luxurious, not even with Will. But now she needed a vessel, and the Villetta would have to do. She only had this one chance to take the ship before William caught onto the fact she’d stolen it, and truth be told, it would tickle him pink.</p><p>“This is for all those days you told me I was a pain in the ass in front of my son,” she said aloud, not caring that anyone could hear. She pushed off her heels and stormed into the bay, barking out orders at the top of her lungs, startling what crew was about and setting up maintenance tasks.</p><p>“Mrs. Clarke?” one of the ensigns said, completely taken aback by her sudden presence.</p><p>“Everyone off the ship! I’m commandeering the Villetta from my husband, and if you have a ball left in those pants you’ll stand in front of me and ask for my credentials. I’ve a Star of Terra and the son of your god. Now get the hell out,” she growled. She also resisted the urge to start laughing. She was completely abusing her power. But it would be worth it in the end, she knew. The world depended on her. Will and David depended on her, or at least David did. She would make sure he had a future, and together, like Will had insisted, she and Will were the ones to do it. Granted, she would be leaving Will at home with the baby.</p><p>She was glad to have seen David reach his second year of life. She should be able to say in a year she was glad to know he would turn three.</p><p>
  <em>I’ll stop it all from happening, baby. I promise.</em>
</p><p>The beacon on Eden Prime had given her the warning before knocking her out in its explosion. The visions of an apocalypse coming to meet all life in the galaxy. Had Nihlus not died, she would already have been seeking the answers to that threat as part of her first mission, and stalking Saren to his death or incarceration.</p><p>
  <em>Damn you, Nihlus! You should have stayed with the squad or on the Normandy, you nosey Turian! Now Saren’s been free for three years and God knows what he’s been able to accomplish! And without you, I won’t be able to convince the Council to stop feeding their own damn demise! What other Spectres do I need to worry about?</em>
</p><p>And then there was Richard Jenkins to avenge. The ransacking of Eden Prime did not have to happen, Richard shouldn’t have died, and no one else should have suffered at the whim of a rogue Spectre. But Saren had made a bad mistake: though Nihlus died and that had set her free of the Alliance, had she not discovered the dead Turian and the dockworker who witnessed the affair, Saren Arterius would have never been connected to the attack. And that was her only silver lining she could convince herself to see.</p><p>Other than David.</p><p>She would still have to avenge Nihlus Kryik for at least having put faith into her by nominating Lana for Spectre status. It was a huge compliment, though failed.</p><p>Lana stalked around the Villetta, chasing everyone out while Koshisigre watched the blustery former commander live up to her reputation. Lana discovered one clerk inside the ship and chased him out after having him account for the food rations and, incidentally, beer.</p><p>“How much we got in store? A month? Two’s worth?”</p><p>“Three weeks, ma’am!”</p><p>“Who else has been flying this ship! There’s marks on the floor!”</p><p>“We have to take her for test runs, ma’am! Joker’s on the helm usually!”</p><p>“What did you call who?”</p><p>“Joker! He’s the major’s pilot!”</p><p>“How does he take care of this place? It’s a sty in the cockpit!”</p><p>“You can ask him, ma’am. He’s due back from break. He takes a little longer than usual because of his condition.”</p><p>Lana fumed, running back inside the Villetta and appearing in the glass windshield of the cockpit. She was picking up trash and wrappers and booty magazines, cursing and yelling fortunately in the soundproof interior.</p><p>
  <em>If this were the Alliance, I’d have him court-martialed for this atrocity. Shit, I need to get that Turian once we’re cleaned up here.</em>
</p><p>Satisfied with the cleaned cockpit, she ran back outside into the hangar, coattails flying. Garrus would be pissed, but Hell if he didn’t deserve it, she thought. She would have to make sure her special Turian didn’t end up getting himself into trouble with the Alliance. Hopefully no one was hailing the Turian Hierarchy to report a vigilante C-Sec reject in Turian scales. She had enough Turian problems on her hands, and Garrus was valuable if he actually had any worthwhile information. If he was able to locate her on Earth to attempt a staged suicide, she had a feeling he did.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’ve been set up!” Garrus flared his mandibles in anger, yelling over the heads of ISS guards who were escorting him away. “That lady! Lana Clarke! She’s trying to steal a ship! She set me up to distract you! Are you hearing me, Humans?”</p><p>“Lana Clarke isn’t here,” one of the ISS guards said. “She’s not permitted to fly any vessel. Her husband would have a fit.”</p><p>“They got divorced! The word hasn’t spread! She’s here!”</p><p>“Nice try, pal. Get going. You go back to whatever shuttle brought you here from Palaven and go home, we won’t contact the Executor at Council Affairs.”</p><p>They escorted him to the end of the next tunnel, unlocked his cuffs, and released him to the crowd of curious passing travelers. Garrus’s mandibles flapped, the left one still lopsided, and gazed about almost disappointedly.</p><p>“I see you weren’t detained,” Lana said, approaching him from behind.</p><p>Garrus growled and pinned her with his claws to a bulkhead.</p><p>“You bitch! You almost got me put in the barracks!”</p><p>She bit down her anger, staring him up.</p><p>“All those Turian smarts and you can’t applaud a decent distraction. Why the Hell would they have put you in the slammer?”</p><p>Garrus hesitated, realizing he had nothing to hide besides a fake but very real ID. He let her go, straightening up tall and pulling up his hoody.</p><p>“Not so smart, are you?” she baited him, watching for another attack.</p><p>Garrus eyed the former N7 marine, looking at him with a defiant smile. She was right. He’d been a dummy, and she’d used him as such.</p><p>“Your former captain would be proud,” he said sullenly. “You tricked a Turian into a trap so you could get your ship. Did it work?”</p><p>She flashbacked to a dark skinned man with an affable smile that could turn into grim faced overseer at the drop of a hat.</p><p>“You know David Anderson?”</p><p>“I worked with him a while on your report about Saren. He hooked my investigation up with some information. Been in touch ever since.”</p><p>“He still on the Normandy?”</p><p>“As far as I know, yes.”</p><p>She nodded, appreciating the knowledge given. Jerking her head to the side, she invited him to follow her into some backway auxiliary tunnels on their return to the Villetta. Garrus studied the ex-commander, her face thoughtful and quiet as they walked in the quieter passages, free of travelers and security agents.</p><p>“You really are something different.”</p><p>“One of a kind,” she said, and smiled at him.</p><p>“Commander Shephard,” he hummed to himself. “Commander fucking Shephard. To think I was going to kill you only yesterday.”</p><p>She snorted. “You wish.”</p><p>He looked at her and huffed.</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Koshisigre aimed the gun at the young man with bristling beard and mutton chops.</p><p>“Are you the pilot named ‘Joker?’”</p><p>“Ah, yep, that would be my nickname.”</p><p>“Before I end your life, what is your relation to Major William Clarke?”</p><p>“Well, we’re not seeing each other if that’s what you’re asking. And I’m kind of preferential to the opposite sex of my species.” Joker heard the ratcheting of the trigger. “Ah, he’s my boss? What else do you want me to tell you?”</p><p>“Nothing. Your future is here.”</p><p>Koshisigre lowered the pistol at the sight of Lana arriving through the emergency exit of the hangar bay with Garrus behind her. He grinned to see that neither looked worse for wear, meaning they hadn’t tried to kill each other, which Garrus was more likely to have done. If it had been Koshisigre who had been detained, he knew he would have made Lana pay dearly.</p><p>She pulled off her jacket and hung it over her forearm, pulling up to a stop in front of him and his victim, the shaggy looking pilot sitting hunched in a wheelchair.</p><p>“Seriously? You?” she sneered. “You’re the one jerking off to porn mags in my cockpit?”</p><p>The man named Joker offered her a conciliatory smile.</p><p>“The major lets me get off when I can, where I can. You think a guy like me gets in the cockpit of a chick like you every day? Never mind in a lifetime?”</p><p>“Are you trying to flatter me? Because it’s not working.”</p><p>She unsettled him with her glare.</p><p>“Are you really the boss’s wife?” Joker asked, leaning away as she crouched to his eye level.</p><p>“Ex-wife. Are you really his pilot?”</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>“Why, dare I ask.”</p><p>Joker’s look turned offended. “Hey, I may be driving a wheelchair now, but my talent’s what got me into that cockpit. I’m an Alliance pilot, tasked with flying the big wigs. You know why? Because I get them where they need to be in half the time it takes to get there. I make ships move.”</p><p>“That doesn’t surprise me.”</p><p>“I mean I make them dance, and I know all the shortcuts. It’s why the Major let’s me live in the cockpit. That, and he pays me a fancy credit on the side.”</p><p>“So you’re that good, you’ll work for free?”</p><p>Joker frowned. “Free? I don’t—“</p><p>“You do,” she said, walking away. Over her shoulder, she called: “Koshisigre, go get that Quarian and tell her she’s got a ride. Garrus, drag that pilot in here if he says he’s not budging. Feel free to break his bones for me if he puts up a fight. Let’s move, people, I haven’t got all day and the minute my ex hears from his crew, we’re in deep shit.”</p><p>Koshisigre watched her walk up the ramp into the Villetta and disappear before he turned to use the emergency exit. Garrus took one look at the Human left with him and tipped his horns to the vessel.</p><p>“But—“</p><p>“I don’t want to hear it. Look, Human, I’ve had a bad day and a night I’d rather forget about, okay? Don’t make me have to bite you to get you and your gear up inside that ship. Besides,” Garrus added, turning the wheelchair and pushing Joker up the ramp, “she likes you. If she didn’t, she’d have killed you already. . . Yep, she’s going to treat you real well, I can tell.”</p><p>Joker’s green eyes widened as the Turian wheeled him up into the Villetta and made for the cockpit, wondering just how the Hell he was going to save himself from a Turian, a Drell, and the crazy ex-wife of his captain.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana Shephard was not what “Joker” Jeff Moreau anticipated, having known the boss for a majority of the past three years. She was hot. She didn’t have the usual standoffishness of her husband, who he thought a prick at times because of his demeanor being that of a bore, but that came with being an auditor of the Alliance navy. How the Hell had she and William Clarke met?</p><p>“One night stand,” she replied to his humble asking. Lana grinned, leaning part way into her chair beside his in the cockpit. “Funny how a pair of legs can catch the bold and dashing. . . He proposed to me when I told him I was pregnant.”</p><p>“You got busy. Sure it wasn’t a plan?”</p><p>She shrugged. “Best little boy in the world came out of me, and I typically don’t give out much in terms of favorable options, but I guess I can make life as well as I can take it.”</p><p>“Good to know.”</p><p><em>Indeed</em>, Koshisigre said in his head. He glanced at Lana sitting across from the tentative Joker asking questions about her personally while she held a gun pointed at his head. Garrus chuffed behind him in his seat, waiting for the dock doors to open and the Villetta to take to flight.</p><p>“So where am I going with your majesty?” Joker asked, rubbing his head under thick, dark curls.</p><p>Lana’s lip raised, identifying the sign of a scalp itch that identified one who needed to take a shower soon and probably would not unless threatened.</p><p>“Citadel first,” she instructed. “Make sure you don’t try anything funny and send an emergency com to the folks at the Alliance or Council. You treat me proper, I’ll make sure you live.”</p><p>“Nice,” Joker replied, nodding at her Hammer Eight.</p><p>He got the feeling she wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Lana smiled from the other end.</p><p>“So, ah, how do you think you’re going to pull off stealing the boss’s ship? You intend to, uh, maybe give it back?”</p><p><em>Nope</em>, she mouthed.</p><p>Garrus sniggered.</p><p>Joker glanced nervously at the Turian, then at the Drell.</p><p>“You do realize that your ex is going to be pissed when he finds out what you’ve done. I mean, ripped, is what he’ll be, especially when he realizes you stole me with it. Technically, it’s kidnapping of an Alliance officer. If I were you, I’d have me turn off the drive core right now and ask for my forgiveness. I’d come up with some story for you,” he said with a wink. “You and I, we could be, like, friends. I don’t know about these two or whoever you put downstairs in the engines, but I—“</p><p>“Are you suggesting I leave my friends to fend for their own?” she asked, raising the gun and an eyebrow. She craned her neck to look at Koshisigre and Garrus, then back. “I don’t think they liked that the first time. Never mind again or on purpose.”</p><p>“Well, I guess I could say I’m into the interspecies thing. . .”</p><p>Lana’s mouth dropped. She started laughing.</p><p>“Is he telling her that he would make up some story about them being in an affair or something?” Garrus asked, leaning closer to Koshisigre.</p><p>“I think he was suggesting more than that, what with including us for freeing him from his current predicament.”</p><p>Garrus thrummed, Joker turning to look.</p><p>“Careful, kid, I might be interested in more than just kidnapping a weak little Human like you. Maybe some bondage and S&amp;M.”</p><p>Lana could not stop laughing at the expression of intrigue on Joker’s face.</p><p>“What’s so funny?”</p><p>Tali came up the stairs from down below deck into the cockpit area, the lights shining off her visor at them.</p><p>“We’re just getting acquainted with my new pilot,” Lana informed her, coolly twirling the Hammer Eight in her fingers. Garrus and Koshisigre both shook their heads.</p><p>“Oh. I see. Well, I thought I’d let you know that the drive core is primed and I’ve checked the cooling links. Everything looks to be in working order, but I would recommend you trade in the old copper hazard holders and move for a new refrigeration system. The galley could use a little reupholstering, too, but that’s not so important. I also ran a diagnostic on the database system and there is a whole lot of pornographic imagery stored on one of the private servers, which I’m interested in since they have some massive amount of encryption. Since this ship is in the Alliance part of the station, would this be a flight condoned by the same regulatory authority? I need to know because if you’re planning on stealing it, I can add a scrambling program into the computer to decoy it under a new signature that the Alliance won’t be able to find even if they were to look for it.”</p><p>Lana, Joker, Garrus, and even the unflappable Koshisigre all raised their eyebrows or scales at the Quarian’s announced plans.</p><p>“By all means,” Lana said, ushering the Quarian back to the ship duties by way of hand flicker, “do what you must, my dear.”</p><p>“Alright. Nice ship by the way!”</p><p>Tali disappeared back down the stairs. She called up as she was returning to her tasks, “There’s a pack of arms in the back. In case any of you are interested in that sort of thing. AK-57s, I think.”</p><p>“What the Hell are you doing with AK-57s on an Alliance Civil ship?” Lana asked Joker.</p><p>“Lady, have you ever flown in space before?” Joker retorted. “Since three years ago, Alliance space has been hazard highway for attacks stemming from the Attican Traverse. Geth have been making an appearance since that first incursion back on Eden Prime. Plus, boarding parties have been more of a norm lately what with the stand-down on all Alliance vessels.”</p><p>“What?” Lana couldn’t believe it. “What stand-down?”</p><p>“There was an order that went out five weeks ago for all Alliance ships to stop patrolling the border between the Terminus and Attican Traverse. Since that’s where most of the mining is done in that belt, we’ve had a shortage of raw materials. Lots of Turian ships out there, however.”</p><p>“That’s not possible,” Garrus sniped from his seat. “The Hierarchy knows better than to be sending in patrols to that border. It’ll piss off the Terminus syndicates. We’ve got enough trouble as is with Vorcha raiding settlements along Virmire’s protected space.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, Major Clarke’s been running the audits and we’ve had more smuggling lately with Turian captains and their running mining supplies in and out for the Alliance. Lots of money moving,” Joker said, rubbing his fingers together, “bribes and blackmail. It’s a dangerous place already, but since the order was sent down from the higher ups, there’s been a colossal amount of takeovers since Alliance pulled out.”</p><p><em>Why would they do such a thing?</em> Koshisigre wondered.</p><p>Lana looked deep in thought. If it were Turians helping smuggle raw goods and mining equipment in for the Alliance, there must be a catch. Someone was hiding something, but it wasn’t for their side, the Alliance being that, or could it be the Council?</p><p>“Hard to tell who’s screwing who with so many players. It’s not related to Saren?” Lana asked Garrus.</p><p>He shook his horns.</p><p>“Six minutes to launch,” a voice pepped out of the speaker system in the hangar bay. Lana groaned.</p><p>“Six minutes? Where’s the override to the dock doors?”</p><p>“Patience isn’t your strong suit, is it,” Joker smirked.</p><p>Lana stepped across the line separating the pilot’s seat from the yeoman’s chair. Looking down at him, she pointed at the symbol on his chest. A tower of three, with stars beneath.</p><p>“That symbol has been the bane of my existence for the past three years. Do you understand who I am yet, Crystal Ball? I’m Lana Shephard. I’m who married William Clarke.”</p><p>Joker gawped. Garrus sniggered, unable to get enough of the surprises this morning.</p><p>“You’re <em>the</em> Lana Shephard? <em>The</em> Fallen Star of Terra?”</p><p>“Is that what they call me now?” Lana asked, leaning back with an amused grin. “Will never told me the gossip surrounding my fall, and raising a kid for two years didn’t really leave me any chance to find out the scuttlebutt besides what I was able to find out from my husband’s files.”</p><p>“You mean ex-husband,” Garrus corrected.</p><p>Lana rolled her eyes.</p><p>“You have a kid? You and Will? Oh,” Joker said, suddenly looking more alert. “<em>Oh</em>.”</p><p>Lana caught the sly look Joker made, as did the others. She grabbed his uniform, tugging the insignia into folds with his collar.</p><p>“What do you mean, ‘oh.’”</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He’s a dead man,” Lana snarled, picking up the picture frame of the buxom brunette and throwing it across the cabin board of the captain’s loft. She picked up the next picture of her and David that she found tucked under a desk drawer and sat down with it, cradling it in her lap and faintly tracing the outline of her son’s face. No one had followed her into the upper cabin of the ship once Joker had been forced to admit what Lana had suspected for so long. It was why she had been able to push Will away so readily and stick to her guns about the Turian that kept her from reaching any other heights in the Alliance. Sniffling, she wiped her nose and put the picture frame on his desk, in place of where the brunette had been. <em>Who the fuck was she?</em> She began pulling open filing drawers and tearing out papers. The cabin sounded with her slamming on one of the drawers she found locked. <em>Probably some whore he saw walking by him on the port. Fucking lying son of a bitch. I knew he was bound to cheat. Look at how you met!</em> She tugged one more time on the drawer and heaved herself off the desk chair to go fall onto the bed. She screamed into the bedsheets.</p><p> </p><p>Garrus looked up at the ceiling of the cockpit as the others did. “She sounds pissed.”</p><p>“Wouldn’t you be if the Turian you married and had a kid with was fucking some other Turian while telling you she loved you?”</p><p>“I’m not one to judge.”</p><p>Joker coughed and shook his head at the Turian. He spun in his chair back to the windshield and attended the controls as the dock doors opened and the Villetta began to rise from its stanchions.</p><p>“The Major’s a prick anyways. He’s had more than a fair share of pretty heads up there in that cabin. Should be a loose woman who decides to stick his prick in her—“</p><p>“Stop right there,” Koshisigre warned, standing from his seat, “before you say something you know you should not finish. I am going up stairs. She is in need of calm thinking, now that she has absconded with her husband’s vessel.”</p><p>“Ex-husband’s,” both Joker and Garrus corrected.</p><p>“Whatever,” Koshisigre grumbled. He caught onto the ladder leading to the upper deck, feeling the lift of the ship as Joker maneuvered it out of dry dock into the cold depth of space. The thrum of the engines ran through his hands and shoes, moving into his lower extremities as the others felt the same vibrations.</p><p>Knocking on the door to the upper loft, Koshisigre listened and heard nothing. He tapped the manual override and went in, where he found glass and a broken frame with a pretty brunette looking up at him, blue eyes and fair skin. She was unlike Lana, in many ways the same.</p><p>Both held a superior beauty.</p><p>“Lana?”</p><p>She was sprawled, face first, in a pool of blue sheets, the color of the Alliance ship they were in. She grumbled out from her hand. “Go away.”</p><p>She felt like throwing up. Fear and anxiety swept through her mind at what she had done to David, leaving him with her cheating husband. . . But had it really been his fault? Had she made him cheat? What with her constant badgering of the IMO and going off whenever the name of a fallen friend or a certain Spectre came up even on the borders of chance conversation. <em>You had to have chased him away, damn it. . .It’s not all his fault. . . And he does love David. . . Right? . . . Fuck. God damn Turians!</em></p><p>“Could you look at me, Lana?”</p><p>“What do you want,” she said through the muffle of her hand, turning over just enough to glimpse his green and black face. “Is the Turian laughing?”</p><p>Koshisigre chuckled, “No. I think no one is laughing at this matter, Lana. Do you mind turning over and sitting up? It is unbecoming of a captain, regardless of how she absconds away with a ship’s command, to be muttering and swearing into the bed of her former husband. . . Is the woman he was keeping that picture of her by the door?”</p><p>“I need to go home.” She stood up on the bed, ignoring his question deliberately, kicking the sheets in bad temper, and stepped down onto the floor with a fold caught on her foot. The result was expected.</p><p>Koshisigre moved swiftly to catch her fall as she tripped up in the sheets and fell face forward into his hands. He caught and held her, looking down at her hair as she pressed against him, laying her palm on his chest and pushing herself away.</p><p>“Sorry. Fuck. That’s embarrassing. I was—“</p><p>“I know.” He held her hand, steadying it away from his chest and putting it at her side. “You get too angry, Lana. Garrus is right in that you are a bit of a wreck when it comes to handling your emotions.”</p><p>“Pertaining to things I believe in, maybe.” She looked at him, softening from her previous wrath. “I at least believe in what I know is the truth.”</p><p>“Right. Of course you do.”</p><p>“Don’t say it like that,” she said, pushing him away.</p><p>He tugged her back. Looking into her eyes with all seriousness, “You can’t go home, Lana. You are on this now, this ship, here. Why did you go through all that trouble to bring us to the ISS? You have recruited three people so far without so much as an effort on your part. . . You were made for this.”</p><p>Cool breath pushed her lashes. They were very close. Were it not for Koshisigre’s restraint, he was sorely tempted.</p><p>“You don’t come into my life knowing who or what I am, and yet you are so loyal to me. Why?”</p><p>He didn’t know. All he did know was that he had been sent to collect her, to encourage her to leave, and by way somehow bring her to where she was needed. Where <em>they</em> needed her. . . And then he would be on his way.</p><p>“What’s your real name, Koshi?”</p><p>“I can’t tell you.”</p><p>She sighed, blowing air out of her nose and onto his lips. Oh! they were so close. It was absolutely sinful for two strangers to be so close, so tantalizingly touching, hard and real in each other’s arms.</p><p>“Hey,” someone shouted from down below, “everything alright up there? We’re clear of the docks. Just thought you should know.”</p><p><em>We have some company,</em> he thought, still looking at her face and testing his resolve.</p><p>“I should go downstairs and keep an eye on that Joker.”</p><p>She slipped herself away from his hand. The impression of her heat in his palm and fingers, on his chest where she had touched him.</p><p>“Koshisigre?”</p><p>He turned, watching her go before she stopped at the ladder to call his name.</p><p>“Lana.”</p><p>She bit her lip, fingering the handle of the bar she was about to hold onto for her descent. She had a memorable quality to her hair, slipping over her shoulder as she faced him, back turning.</p><p>“What were you going to offer me that day you walked me in the rain?”</p><p>“Proof,” he said succinctly. “Proof that you are still valuable to someone.”</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>Koshisigre paused before speaking again. He was memorizing her, adding her present form to the touch he had felt with his own hands and through his shirt.</p><p>“He is only known as the Illusive Man. I cannot give you more than that in terms of information, but he thinks very highly of you.” <em>As I am starting to myself,</em> he thought, having committed her to his memory in that very spot by the ladder.</p><p>She nodded, accepting this and asking nothing more, then grabbed both bars on the ladder and straddling it with her heels, slid downward to the next floor, her boots and her hands making a squealing sound as her hair trailed after her for a brief second.</p><p>Koshisigre stepped over to the picture frame ruined on the floor and began to clean up the glass, pausing once to look at the frame on the desk with Lana and her son. He hoped she had the same level of resolve he had. . . He hoped.</p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Show me what you got.” Lana sat down beside Garrus and poked him in the chest. The Turian growled warningly, but revealed a datapad from the desk he had commandeered in the lower bunks of the ship.</p><p>“Based on your constant pestering of the Salarian over on Earth—“</p><p>“The Magistrate clerk?”</p><p>He nodded, twitching his wounded left mandible. “You’re kind of a jerk, he mentioned to me. Just thought I’d pass it along,” he said with a shoulder shrug.</p><p>“Tell me more,” she laughed, rocking back a little, “I always hoped to beat his ass some day. That Salarian was a prick.”</p><p>“Well, good,” he sighed, matching her position as they both stretched like an imperceptible yawn of bodies, “then you both thought highly of the other.”</p><p>“So anyways. . . ?”</p><p>“Right.” He relaxed, laying back against the seat cushions padding the bench built into the bulkheads. “Saren was last seen on the Citadel, having done his regular meeting with the Council, Sparatus in particular. There seems to be a dichotomy between the two that speaks to a higher level of relationship. Not saying they’re in cahoots, but Sparatus tends to listen closely to Saren among the other Spectres who report in from the Turian Hierarchy. You know, I wouldn’t say, also, that one or the other likes each other. They are <em>animosus</em> at best.”</p><p>“Great. So they hate each other, but they work together. That could be good for me.”</p><p>He glared at her, pushing the datapad into her palm. While she looked at it and read through several files of stolen and unencrypted emails, he shared with her his opinion of her statement. “You? You wouldn’t get within one foot of Sparatus, never mind in the same ward. He’ll have heard of your leaving Earth and this ship’s <em>coincidental misdocking</em> from the ISS. You know we’ll be sitting ducks once we dock on the Citadel. Remember how tight the Control Tower used to be? It hasn’t loosened up.”</p><p>“No problem,” said Tali, who emerged from the foot of the ramp leading down from their bunks to the engineering rooms. She tapped her hand with what looked like a wrench and a plasma field regulator, two heads on the curved end that could plug into outlets simultaneously. “I can get you on the Citadel without having to acknowledge Control or Control acknowledges you.”</p><p>“How?” Garrus snapped.</p><p>Tali tilted her head at him, giving him a look like he was rude and servile. “It’s easy. When you have to run away from a bunch of assassins, you kind of figure out how to get out of the Citadel unnoticed and fastly.”</p><p>“Is that even a word?” Garrus asked.</p><p>“You’re a real bosh’tet, you know that?”</p><p>Lana chuckled, handing Garrus the chart she had found on his screen that plotted out Saren’s frequency of visits to the Citadel in the past year. “He’s a Turian, Tali. What do you expect from a lizard who can’t scratch his ass unless he lifts those plates and armor of his?”</p><p>“Are you implying that I am an irate Turian because I can’t relieve an itch when I want to?”</p><p>“You couldn’t relieve me with twelve mercs, yourself included.”</p><p>He sniffed, blowing air out his nostrils and stood up to walk back towards the galley. He wanted something to drink, and being around two females, regardless of species, was making him irritable. Especially when one was supposed to be dead and kept rubbing it in his face that he’d failed.</p><p>“I’ll make it up to you,” he called back to her, gripping a cabinet and swinging it open with a click, “give me a gun and I won’t fail this time.”</p><p>Lana ignored him and turned her attention to Tali, who was looking down at her and waiting.</p><p>“So you were attacked by assassins on the Citadel?”</p><p>“A bunch of Salarians and Krogan, if you can believe it. They wanted some data files I had recorded on my Nexus cuff. It’s been a real bosh’tet, too, trying to keep this stuff on me at all times, but it guarantees my insurance.”</p><p>“Must have been some real important shit if Salarians <em>and</em> Krogan were teaming up to get you.”</p><p>“Yes, and they almost did.” She turned, revealing her backside to Lana and lifting up a torn silk. There was a hole seared through, about the size of a finger as if it had been poked. “They punctured my suit. I became infected instantly by polonium round. Not good. Made for a very bad day.”</p><p>“You must have been treated,” Lana said, eyeing the hole in the fabric and reminding herself to keep her hands where they were in her lap, “unless you were prepared to treat the radiation poisoning with a dose of the cure.”</p><p>“Two shots of adrenaline, a reversal synthetic, and superior antibiotics to boost my immune system’s response. Then lots of water and rest, which is what led me to find the secret docks I am going to show to you to get you on the Citadel. I was able to hide there and stow myself on a ship, which brought me to ISS. You Humans have a laxity with checking your ship’s runners.”</p><p>“How did you survive in the cargo hold in deep space flight?”</p><p>“My suit can withstand cold temperatures. It is self-regulatory. Otherwise I’d be too busy adjusting and readjusting to keep my body heat stable. You walk around in coats and clothes? I walk around in biosphere.”</p><p>“Do you ever get laid in that contraption?” Lana giggled, standing from her seat and playfully smiling at the Quarian.</p><p>Tali swiveled her head and looked right at Garrus, who was oblivious to the stare.</p><p>“No, but a girl’s got to eat sometime.”</p><p>Lana began to laugh, Tali joining in with a small giggle from her amplifier.</p><p>Garrus paused, hovering a canteen of some provenance under his nose with the lid open for a whiff. “What?”</p><p>“So why are you running, Miss Boldly I Go Shephard?” Tali asked, turning her attention to Lana again. They walked into the kitchen beyond the end of the galley, leaving a puzzled Turian staring after them. “You have something against this Saren you mention to the grimy Turian?”</p><p>“I do. And he’s a birthday I want to celebrate with.”</p><p>Tali made a face behind her visor. “Really?”</p><p>“His last one, where I’m going to put a bullet between his eyes.” She cocked her hand at a picture of a Turian on the wall, an artistic rendering by one of the crew she had chased off. “Saren led the slaughter of Eden Prime. He had a whole phalanx of Geth with him. They did a clean job, but made a mess when they murdered my assessor from the Council Spectres group.”</p><p>“Nihlus,” Garrus put in, handing Tali the datapad. She saw a picture of the former Turian in regal uniform. “He was a Kryik, and one of the high families on Palaven. Sponsored several tours for Turians into the Alliance’s Contact War, then moved on into espionage. Reasoned that he could do more cross borders or space, what have you, and the Council sent out their first Spectres to contact him in 2163. Died twenty years later with a bullet to the back. Presumably by Saren, but because this Human here brought in a suspect dockworker while also destroying a fifty thousand year old beacon of Prothean origin, she took the heat and put it on Saren, which he used against her and so did the Council.”</p><p>“Because they’re idiots,” she hissed.</p><p>Garrus flared, knocking over a cabinet’s metal magnets someone had been collecting with his bulk as he turned and snarled at her. “You caused the destruction of a valuable beacon. Do you understand the technology that information inside could have provided? Of course the Council had it in for you. And the Alliance. Dragging some red sand addled dockrat onto the Citadel and blaming Saren for the beacon’s destruction only made you look desperate to pass the buck. Whether Saren did kill Nihlus or not would have been overlooked because Spectres are expendable and that shit happens in that line of work.”</p><p>“You asshole, I wasn’t passing the buck but trying to pay the fare! I gave them what they needed! Evidence! Witness! He even admitted he was there!”</p><p>“To follow up on Nihlus’s foolish nomination of you!”</p><p>The furniture rattled as the cabinets popped open from the fizzling tension of dark energy exuding from Lana. Her eyes lit purple.</p><p>“I will—“</p><p>“Lana,” Koshisigre said, having come down from the stairs, “why don’t you go check with Joker. You and Tali should explain to him what you have in mind for docking with the Citadel.”</p><p>“Were you there this whole time?” she asked.</p><p>“Joker has had you on the speaker system in the cockpit. We have been listening.”</p><p>“Give me that data,” she said, swiping the datapad out of Garrus’s hip holder. He growled, but she stared him back, biotic light snapping around her hair.</p><p>“Shephard,” Tali whispered from her speakers.</p><p>“You’re just as bad as that Turian if you think I’m a fool,” Lana hissed at Garrus, stalking away from him. “And you’re just as stupid if you think I’m going to stand there and let you call me an idiot for something that was out of my control. Two things happened that day on Eden Prime. I saw good men die. I also had a vision from the beacon that told me something that I will never forget, and is part of the reason I left my only hope in this world behind. I’m not just doing all this to kill Saren,” she said, waving the pad at him, “I’m doing this because if I don’t stop what I saw from happening, we’re all as good as dead.”</p><p>“Oh, how selfless of you,” Garrus wheedled. He fixed his stare on her, curling his fists. “You only knew how to tear everything down. What makes you think you can hold any shit together? Those murders are on you because you let Saren get away by being a lunatic. Listen to you now. Oh,” he feigned despair, grabbing his crooked mandibles, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling! There’s a damn beacon over there I’m going to blow up, never mind the poor guy who just got stabbed in the back by the damn enemy running the show!”</p><p>Tearing a small table out of the bulkhead, he threw it with all his might at the opposite wall, a tremendous throw that shattered and dented wood and steel.</p><p>Garrus thrust a claw at Lana, flicking the laces from his hoody. “And I could have fixed it! I could have caught Saren! You’d become a weeping martyr and I’d have my Turian pride back. Because of you, I lost <em>my</em> job! Because of you and <em>him</em>,” Garrus snarled, pointing at Koshisigre, “I lost my men! And now!” He punched the door of a cabinet, denting it in with his fist forming in the metal. Garrus heaved and chuckled, sighing in a strange sing song sort of way. He stumbled backwards and sat down on a bench, his arm happening to land on the upturned table he had thrown. “Now I’m fucking letting you buy me soda and tag along on a fool’s errand.” He swung his head, side to side, mandibles loose as his yellow eyes glared upwards at Lana. “You better get your shit right this time, Shephard, because it won’t just be Saren gunning for you, but the whole damn galaxy.”</p><p>“Glad to know you cared so much, Garrus.” Lana slapped the pad in her hand, turned on her heel, and with the iciness of what she wanted to do to that Turian just then, went up to the second level with Tali following her.</p><p>Koshisigre spared a glance at Garrus, who was staring despondently at the destroyed wall opposite him.</p><p>“Was that really necessary?” he asked, voice low.</p><p>“Get the hell away from me,” Garrus chuffed. He hiccuped, looking suddenly at Koshisigre. “What the hell do you know about her that makes you so damn sure she’s worth all the trouble? Why is she worth anything more alive? You kill her, she becomes a key to an investigation that gains me back my status as a respected officer on the Citadel!”</p><p>Koshisigre straightened, and pulled out a knife. He pointed it at Garrus and trilled.</p><p>“If you ever consider doing yourself the honors of making any further attempt on her life, I will redeem yours for you by delivering your body personally to the Executor, and inform him that you died for Palaven.”</p><p>“You put too much faith in her, Drell. We all did. And look where it got me.”</p><p>“Go get some more sleep, Garrus. You need it. All this talk is as from a child in need of a nap. You think Lana is doing this just to cause more trouble, and I don’t doubt that she will personally, but she knows something we don’t. Always has. And she’s not doing this all for reputation or standing. She is fighting back to keep what she knows she has lost. No Star of Terra. No Spectre renomination. No begging the Alliance to take her back. She left her child with the man she loved, who stabbed <em>her</em> in the back, and still she goes forward with her decision.”</p><p>“She’s no torchbearer, Koshisigre. She’s just another victim of her stupidity.”</p><p>“Is she?” He played with the knife in his fingers. “It would seem to me, Garrus, that you have been a victim of your own stupidity. Plotting to kill a hero to make her a martyr for your own personal glory was likely the act of a fool, and not only did you fail, but you also dragged your own men to their graves. . . Let that be food for thought,” he said, sheathing the knife in a fold in his coat and turning to walk up the ramp. He paused, and looked over his shoulder briefly. “Clean up down here, and I won’t personally rejoin you again about the virtues of your mistakes. . . And Garrus?”</p><p>The Turian raised his head.</p><p>“Goodnight.”</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thought that someone was out to get her couldn’t be evaded. Lana judged that by the time she met the next block, she would be overtaken by her worst nightmare.</p><p>Herself.</p><p>Yellow eyes haunted her, lusting after blood in her sleep.</p><p>She woke, frantic.</p><p> </p><p>“And how are you going in dressed like that?” Tali asked as they used the facilities. “Won’t people recognize you?”</p><p>“Did you have something else in mind, because I’m open to solutions, not quandaries,” Lana replied, pulling her bra on after having taken a shower. She didn’t realize Tali was staring at her.</p><p>“You could pretend to be Quarian. Put a mask on over your head. There is also Alliance armor with headgear downstairs beneath deck.”</p><p>Lana chuckled, shaking her hair as she pulled up her underwear. “What will we find on this ship next. . . Tali, what is it? You look like you forgot something.”</p><p>“I forget how long it’s been since I have been out of this mask, never mind suit,” she said wistfully.</p><p>Lana cocked her head and studied the Quarian, then looked down at herself half naked, wearing less than she next to her. In fact, Tali had only come in to change out and sterilize some filters from the compartments of her suit with a spray of some concoction in a small vial she carried on her person.</p><p>“Oh! You never change out of the suits, do you?”</p><p>“We do,” Tali informed her politely, “but only in a sterile environment. Usually we change once a week on the flotilla vessel, but since I have been away on my ‘pilgrimage’ so long, I cannot change due to the environment outside. It would severely compromise me. . . So I have these,” she indicated the black and striated filters with meshing and plastic drying on the counter. “And this,” she pointed to a box in the back of her boot. “It processes the unpleasantness.”</p><p><em>Damn</em>, Lana thought, <em>nothing like walking with a recycler on the back of your calves.</em></p><p>“You must be very organized to have to worry about and maintain all that.”</p><p>“Quarians have to be. It is survival. . . Commander.”</p><p>Lana quirked an eyelid. “Really? You’re going to start calling me that?”</p><p>If a Quarian could smile through her visor and be seen, Lana would have known she was teasing her. Tali’s eyes slanted and glowed.</p><p>The commander’s right arm and leg had a scar, which Tali was now studying as the woman continued to dry her hair and prep to clothe.</p><p>“Where did you get such a lovely birthmark,” she joked.</p><p>Lana looked at the long scar running from her elbow down. “Battle of the Blitz. I took a warp to my whole right side. Reconfigured the flesh and muscle, but I survived because of my armor.” She looked at Tali. “Sometimes even being in a suit has its advantages.”</p><p>“For me, always.”</p><p>Tali reached out with her finger in its tight plastic glove and felt the knotted tissue on Lana’s arm. The women had a moment of thoughtful collection as they considered the odds of the other’s skin, exposed or in enviro suit.</p><p>“Do you mind?” Tali asked, uncertainly.</p><p>“No,” Lana said, moving her arm up, “go ahead. I’m not afraid of you. It’s just skin.”</p><p>“Just skin,” Tali murmured, almost sad in the tone of her voice used. When was the last time she had felt anything akin to touch against her own cells? “I miss home,” she suddenly whispered.</p><p>Lana understood. As a mother, she understood, and took Tali into her arms for an awkward, yet comfortable, embrace.</p><p>They stood quietly in the bathroom of the Villetta, Lana patting the Quarian’s back. Though they were strangers, both needed this moment of connection, even across species. The Villetta hummed around them, its interior walls holding staid amenities built for servicemen and women. A hairdryer, a rack of towels, toilette and basic things. The shower was a stand alone, and there were two, one for him, one for her. Curtains of the plastic variety, faintly reminiscent of Tali’s suit, hung from a silver hanger that wrapped the half of the room. Stripes ran from ceiling to floor in an attempt to make things feel like more than the sparsity offered. It was a bathroom. It had to be cleaned. No wood. Only steel, plastic, and vinyl. The room itself was mostly white, sterile and comforting to a Quarian.</p><p>Lana shifted as her skin prickled. The door had opened, releasing the steam, and Garrus and Koshisigre were waiting on the other side.</p><p>Startled.</p><p> </p><p>Garrus shut the door. Quick.</p><p>“What the Hell was that about?” he asked, turning to look at Koshisigre.</p><p>“I suppose the women are getting to know each other.”</p><p>“That was severely awkward.”</p><p>Koshisigre grinned. “I think you have issues with intimacy, Garrus.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, maybe you and Shephard don’t mind getting all cuddly on launch ships and in close quarters with Quarians, but I like my space,” and raising his voice, hitting the door with the slap of his palm and scratch of his talons, “and I want my shower! Move out! Stop cuddling in there and go some place decent. . . Like the bedroom!”</p><p> </p><p>Tali snorted through her amplifier and looked at Lana, who was shaking her head at the blustersome Turian on the other side of the sliding door.</p><p>“If he won’t be the death of me,” she said, letting Tali to her filters.</p><p>The Quarian scooped these up, pulled out a laser from behind her mask, and set the glow to hot. She waved this over the filter slots, disinfecting before she replaced them into three various ports throughout her suit, one at the neck, one at the back, and one in the front below her belly.</p><p>“That should be good for now. Come on, Shephard, let’s go make you a new suit.”</p><p>“I have to get dressed. I’ll meet you down in the engine room?”</p><p>“Okay, Shephard. . . And thanks.”</p><p>She smiled at the Quarian, reaching for her shirt as Tali turned and opened the door.</p><p>Lana was still getting dressed as Garrus pushed his way in, keeping tight to the wall to move around her pulling on her shirt and tugging this down over her belly.</p><p>“Nice scar. . . By the way,” he said, noticing the light knotting.</p><p>Lana looked up, nodded curtly, and grabbed her pants, breasts slung low and visible by cleavage revealed above the scoop of her T shirt. Garrus chuffed and flared his mandible, pointing to the right one.</p><p>“You need to let me go to get this fixed. The left one.”</p><p>“When we get to Tzadera Ward, you can take Tali to go check out medical supplies. I have to go with Koshi to find some IDs. I trust you won’t abandon us. . . Or her. . . Mr. Garrus?”</p><p>He snorted, unclasping his buckles around thick heavy pants.</p><p>“You going to just strip in front of me?”</p><p>“Please, Human, not like I didn’t just see you half-naked holding the Quarian. You can’t see anything anyways besides my ass. Not that you’d ever half to worry about that sort of thing.”</p><p>He turned away, giving her a half view until she grabbed her pants and stalked out.</p><p>Right into Koshisigre, who had been listening and standing by just outside the bathroom in case an altercation should arise, in which he would have to intervene between the two. He had said good morning to Tali on her way out, and posting just shy of the frame, eavesdropped, being polite by only not going in as Garrus had done so rudely. Lana came out in just her shirt, bra, and underwear, long legs exposed to reveal the pink scar fading apart the dark olive tone of her right leg. Koshisigre’s hand brushed the scar of her arm as she bulldozed into him, and he caught her again. Licking his lip, he broke into a blush through his tebris, and a surprised smile.</p><p>“Miss Lana, we seem to be having these incidents lately,” he half laughed, half observed in truth.</p><p>“Sorry, I guess when you’re around I just fall all over you,” she half flirted, half laughed back.</p><p>Garrus chortled and sighed from inside the shower, the spray having turned on again and hissing, but not so loud he couldn’t hear the awkward flirting just beyond the door to the hall.</p><p>Koshisigre, being a gentleman, bent to pick up her pants she had dropped. He had a good, long length of leg to admire as he lowered down to the right of her scar. When he came back up, his heart was beating a little more rushed. He was not out of shape. He was not sick. . . Or was he?</p><p>“Lana, one day, you will have to tell me about that scar on your leg. . . And arm,” he added, passing her the dark pants. He looked her in the eyes, saw what he wanted to see, and smiled even more.</p><p>“You can ask, but you might get bored. I’m sure you have far more interesting stories to tell, Mr. So-Called Koshisigre.”</p><p>She brushed passed him, not sparing him another glance, a little grin on both their faces.</p><p>Koshisigre shook his head and sighed aloud.</p><p> </p><p>“We have fifteen more minutes until dock. You sure this place is safe?”</p><p>Tali looked at Joker, then Lana. She nodded. “These are the vats,” she said, indicating the large port doors on the cusp of the hub end of the Citadel space station. It was a huge goliath of prosaic proportions, spinning infinitely in space like it belonged there for years, eons even. No one knew of its origin, except it had some Prothean design what with the fluid, ceramic quality of the surfaces and structures smoothly grooved and glistening in light. It was harbored by a celestial nebula of gaseous space and dust, scintillating only occasionally through a yearning star beyond. The Serpent Nebula, its head loosely wound back on itself.</p><p>Lana looked through the windshield, though now, she should be calling it solarshield, heat buffer, cold barrier, life sustainer. For if it were ever to crack, the entire ship would be compromised. <em>Civilian vessels</em>, she thought, pulling tight the glove Tali had found and made her put on. <em>Always meant for aesthetic and not practicality or, in truth, reality.</em></p><p>“We’re going to have to abscond with a better ship than this one eventually, I hope.”</p><p>“What’s wrong with the Villetta?” Joker asked, perturbed despite having been hijacked, kidnapped, and threatened with a gun that would likely jettison them all out into space if she missed her shot. And the woman was wild. He did not trust in her completely yet, though she had accommodated his mild interest in porn matter and left his personal server alone. For the most part.</p><p>Two day cycles later, in the time it would take to fly around Earth thrice, they had reached the Citadel in half the time it took for a regular ship. Joker had taken advantage of celestial changes in space conditions. Knowing where to avoid the normal clutter of debris from ships, the flares from suns, the winds from massive planets, and the noncourteous traffic of spacely neighbors, he had arrived with the Villetta under cover of its new assigned signature, provided by Tali’s capable programs and dextrous mind. The Quarian was a formidable, technologically savvy engineer, unlike any he had met in his career as an Alliance, or ex-Alliance now, pilot.</p><p>He admired the Quarian in her tight fitting plastic suit and trim figure, most likely from not having much to eat as a Quarian struggling to make a living in Alliance controlled space. <em>She could have ended up worse elsewhere,</em> he knew and thought this aloud to his cockpit audience as they watched the port doors of the vat chambers among the Citadel’s opened ward arms zoom closer.</p><p>“So why were you being chased by assassins? I wonder, because it doesn’t seem like you’re the type to get into a lot of trouble,” Joker said to Tali.</p><p>Tali rubbed a misting of condensation off her visor and blinked over at Joker.</p><p>“I go on my pilgrimage like any other Quarian among the flotilla. We are supposed to bring back something useful for the ship we are from. I happened to find a Geth who had some extraordinary enhancements that I knew would be valuable to my father, who studies the Geth for the flotilla’s advantage. We are still at odds with the servants of the people.”</p><p>“You mean Geth.”</p><p>“Yes, but they are objects, not persons. You understand?”</p><p>Joker raised a dark eyebrow and scratched under his beard. Lana saw the scratching and ordered him to take a shower or else she would drag him in herself.</p><p>“I’m about to dock the ship!” he exclaimed.</p><p>“Tali,” she turned to the Quarian, who was already settling into the yeoman chair, which happened to have the auto steering, “you can bring us in, can’t you?”</p><p>“Of course, Shephard.” Her eyes gleamed in what Lana was recognizing to be a smile.</p><p>“Garrus! Bring him down the stairs and be gentle. I’ll be pissed if you hurt him, but just put him in the shower room and make sure he doesn’t come out until he smells like shampoo at least. God knows what’s trapped living in that beard and hair of his. You also need a trim,” she added, hooking her thumb behind her, telling him it was time to get rinsed and clean. “You call yourself an Alliance pilot.” She snorted after her disparagement.</p><p>Joker grumbled something about dictatorships and coups, but left his padded chair and magazines to go before the Turian, who looked about sick for having to play ward over a Human that preferred not having to bathe himself every other day, never mind every two.</p><p>“I’m glad I can’t smell him through my filters,” Tali remarked, guiding the Villetta into the large overhang of the vat docks. There was a pasty grime coating most of the unusually, more often than not, pristine surfaces of the bottom of the Citadel hub’s arm. It was protein and heavens knew what else. Lana did not like the idea of the Quarian having had to hide here until she could sneak off on a protein reclamation ship. The idea appalled her for one so young and sensitive to bacteria. And alone.</p><p>“Tali, you must have been very brave to escape through here.”</p><p>The Quarian glanced at Lana and shined her eyes. “I was petrified, Shephard.”</p><p>“But you managed to survive and get out. That takes courage, resourcefulness. . . Resolve.”</p><p>“Thanks, Shephard, but I was only trying to find a way out.”</p><p>“Sometimes any reason is all you need.”</p><p>The Skyllian Blitz had been Lana’s most desperate survival. She had managed to save lives and defend the colony at Elysium singlehandedly, but not without great pain and cost to her. The scar along her arm and leg would always remind her of the pain she would have to live with from losing some, while protecting others. It was why she never requested the healing that had been offered when the Alliance had awarded her extraordinary service with the Star of Terra. Those scars, and the small one on her chin from shrapnel explosions, reminded her every time she looked in the mirror.</p><p>Lana had only every wanted to serve. She was a mother. . . And not.</p><p>She was duty bound, upheld the innocent and the truth, and could care less for a metal or accolades.</p><p>Her inclination was to survive and to protect as well as she could.</p><p>And it would be the glue that brought men and women together under her command.</p><p>“So why would assassins want this data you had from the Geth?” she resumed with Joker’s initial topic of conversation.</p><p>Tali shook her head, unwilling to disclose what she had found, but not so willing to ignore the commander’s request.</p><p>“There is fair deal of attention on Geth technology. Even their data stores are hard to collect without a platform self-destructing. I can only imagine that the assassins were aware of this and thought they would make a banking in on what my own diagnostics revealed.”</p><p>Lana considered Tali, having seen the difference between her honesty and evasiveness. She was far too intelligent not to know exactly why someone would send hitmen after her. She decided now was not the time to pry further.</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll be landed in just about ten more minutes,” Tali’s voice declared over the speakers throughout the ship.</p><p>Garrus looked at the scraggly Human coming wet from the shower. Joker gave him a surly glare and proceeded to remove a bag of hygienic implements from under the counter inside a small footlocker.</p><p>“Do you mind? I kind of have to groom here. Just because Turians don’t happen to have a strand of hair on their bodies doesn’t mean you can stand there and enlighten yourself.”</p><p>“We have grooming tools, too, you know. Let me enlighten you.”</p><p>“Please don’t.”</p><p>“A Turian has scales,” Garrus went on, ignoring the helpless Joker, who was consciously trying to dry himself with an extra towel, keeping the other wrapped around his lower waist. “These have to be cleaned of mites and bacteria that can lead to infections. Bathing and sudsing is one method of removal of said organisms. The other is through a sterilized dusting, and we have special scrubbers that help abrade the dead skin cells off. This is important because if not shed, far more can build up under the skin and block our pores. . .”</p><p>Garrus grinned gleefully at the Human’s discomfort.</p><p>“You’re a big bully, you know that?” Joker accused him.</p><p>“What do you mean? I’m just telling you about our differences and similarities.”</p><p>“Yeah, just after I told you not to. Do you always have to be the boss? Because you kind of suck at it.”</p><p>Joker flinched at the Turian’s antagonized snarl.</p><p>“Garrus,” Koshisigre warned, coming out of the crew quarters where all the men were supposed to sleep together while the ship was in flight, the women allowed a separate cabin, and the captain his or her own loft. It was where Lana and Tali had slept in turns while watching Joker and getting to know the ship during their flight to the Citadel, in rotation with Koshisigre and Garrus. “Why don’t you let him get prepared? He has met the commander’s demands and I’m sure she will be content with the focus you have given your charge. . . But now, you, too, should get ready to disembark.”</p><p>As if at that prompt, the Villetta groaned and shook. Joker caught a counter with his hand, steadying himself while holding onto his waist towel. Garrus and Koshisigre called up to the higher deck, asking if all was well.</p><p>“Just a little shaky attaching to the vat aux lift,” Lana’s voice rained down from above.</p><p> </p><p>She looked at Tali and grinned. “Good work. Let’s go suit me up officially. See what you had in mind for my disguise.”</p><p>Tali took another look through the window of the ship, remembering the filth coating the exterior of the port walls. She nodded, sighing. It did not feel so good being back, but if it were the only way she could get back to the flotilla, well, as Lana had said, that was as good a reason as any to step back into that port.</p><p> </p><p>The suit was tight, elastic, and fitting. Lana vacuumed out the extra air, until the skin weave meant to support the armor conformed perfectly to her body. Tali made several adjustments to the uniform, unfazed by the foreignness of Human armor accoutrements and their manipulation, while Garrus, Joker, and Koshisigre looked on.</p><p>“Damn, Shephard,” Joker laughed. “You go out in just that weave, you’ll have eyes all over you.”</p><p>“I do have curves, don’t I.”</p><p>Garrus said nothing. Koshisigre didn’t say anything.</p><p>Tali smacked the liner zipping up over Lana’s posterior. “Looks fitted, Shephard. Are you uncomfortable?”</p><p>“Maybe just a little. The uniform’s a bit more snug since I’ve had a child, but I’ll get used to it. It’s only temporary until I can find something less conspicuous.”</p><p>“So why are you wearing it again? People recognize the face, not the ass. Though in your case—“</p><p>“Shut up, Joker.” Lana gave him a warning smile and extended her hand to Tali, who had bent down to reveal from a bag the final touch.</p><p>“I’ll have to sterilize it afterwards, but for now, you can use my extra hood and visor. Just. . . Be very careful with it, Shephard. If my mask should break. . .”</p><p>“I know. . . I know, Tali. I’ll be careful.”</p><p>She donned the hood, pulling tight the mask straps over her head. Tali moved the silks around Lana’s body, weaving, wrapping, knotting, adjusting as she worked her way down the improvised envirosuit meant to disguise Lana. When they were done, Lana turned around and faced her three crew, Tali standing proudly beside her.</p><p>“You know,” Joker said with his brow pushed forward, “you could pass for a flotilla chick.”</p><p>Tali chuckled with Lana and the two women left the cabin of the crew. Garrus and Koshisigre stood from their bench and followed Joker out after the women.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana’s silks were the same as Tali’s, if not slightly different patterned. They could have passed for sisters, being alike in height and dressed in form fitting suits of varying materials. But to the unobservant, the spandrels of silks attached to the hood and mask of Lana’s disguise made them unambiguous.</p><p>But they still garnered a decent amount of attention once they had emerged from the docks of wastage transfer. The smell of repulsive materials and aromas was a relief to escape as they boarded a lift to the upper wards of the Citadel.</p><p>“Too bad we have to walk so far to reach the lower arms. Any chance they have skycars here?”</p><p>“You don’t remember? Of course they have skycars,” Garrus chuffed, knocking about the lift with his heavy blue armor clacking against the porcelain walls and glass.</p><p>“I remember. Just making conversation. Joker, you good?”</p><p>“You mean, am I going to run off with this Turian pushing my wheelchair from behind? No,” Joker scoffed, glaring up at Lana from his seat on the metal wheelchair. “Why do I have to go when I can just as easily man the ship?”</p><p>“Because we don’t want you to get the idea that you can fly off, abandoning us,” Garrus growled.</p><p>“I haven’t proved myself trustworthy yet?” He gestured to Lana with a wave of his hand. “I’ll take her any day so long as she pays my room and board.”</p><p>“Speaking of which,” Lana said, glancing down at her Savant. “I’m probably going to be cut off soon from my own personal funds. Which means I’m going to need to find some mode of employment while here. Or funding. . .”</p><p>She looked up at the nearest sign, a hand pointing towards a kiosk that read, “Bank of Trust.” Pursing her lips, she stepped out of the lift, having stopped on the access point for the upper wards, and witnessing a profound amount of Aliens moving back and forth along the avenue they stepped out on, Joker being wheeled along, Lana indicated to Tali where she wanted to go first.</p><p>“Think you can hack that with me?”</p><p>“Shephard,” Tali said, shaking her head, “we are Quarians on the Citadel. Best to remain inconspicuous as possible. Standing outside a bank trying to break it, never mind actually going inside to make a withdrawal, is bound to raise suspicion.”</p><p>Koshisigre added his input. “I would advise against it, Lana. The sentiment against Quarians is as strong as ever because of the Geth.”</p><p>“Another brainy move already initiated by the lucrative commander captaining this squad,” Garrus snorted above Joker.</p><p>Lana smirked, tipping her shoulder to look at the four behind her. She tipped her head to an island of gardens and sculptures not far from the bank.</p><p>“Shephard, what are you doing?”</p><p>“Go wait by the garden, Tali. You two,” she spoke to Garrus and Joker, “go wait with her. Tali, when you see Koshi give you a signal, start opening a new account online through the Bank of Trust. Koshi, come with me.”</p><p>He followed her, leaving the others slightly baffled, but they went to the garden island and waited.</p><p>“What do you think you’re doing?” he whispered, moving quickly to keep up with her pace. “You don’t have to worry about this right now, Lana. I can handle your expenses.”</p><p>“Never depend on a man to give you all your money,” she murmured out the side of her mouth as she removed the mask from her face, hooking it to one of the armor clasps behind her left hip. She fluffed her hair, grabbed the nearest dress off a hanger she passed on an outdoor market stall, and disappeared into a corridor with Koshisigre slowing down and putting his hands on his arms. He quirked his eyeridge and watched her get undressed, tug down the compression suit, and slip the dress over her head and shoulders.</p><p>“Why do I get the benefit of having such a lovely woman undress before me, not just once but twice in the same day?”</p><p>“Don’t get your hopes up, Koshi. You’re my wall.”</p><p>She smiled and hiked up the skirt, letting more calf show above the thick boot.</p><p>“Wait,” he said, and checking to see if the corridor was safe, stepped back outside and into the department store from which she’d borrowed the dress. The least he could do was pay for it, and a pair of shoes he guessed would match what she had put on.</p><p>The dress was red. If he could grab something black, maybe, or. . . White.</p><p>He knew Asari preferred the boisterous colors. Picking up a pair of straps, he swung his chit card in front of a kiosk and returned to Lana, waiting against the wall between stores.</p><p>“Try these. I had to guess your size.”</p><p>Strapping the thin little shoes on, she clipped back and forth in the corridor and, without a glance, darted outside into the main avenue. Rounding the corner, Koshisigre looked where she was going. And froze.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s Koshi. I guess now I should start opening the account.”</p><p>Tali set to work, pretending not to watch the woman in the red dress and spaghetti strap white heels walking brusquely into the bank, its glass doors sliding wide at her billowy entrance.</p><p>Garrus’s mandible twitched as the sight of red thread on the suddenly changed commander.</p><p>“What the heck is she doing?” Joker asked, flummoxed. “Hitting on the manager?”</p><p>Garrus grumbled about something related to a decoy then regripped the wheelchair handles and turned in the direction of the easiest path to hiding, which would only lead them deeper into the wards.</p><p> </p><p>Kolyat Krios swung his key card and looked again towards where he’d thought he’d seen a flash of red and white blur into the bank up ahead. He kneaded the deposit bag he was returning to the manager of the Bank of Trust, having certified the most recent drop into the company’s safe fifteen minutes ago.</p><p>He had long black pants and leggings underneath as was custom for the C-Sec garb he was dressed in to help identify him to the district’s businesses. He had a sleeved vest over a thick shirt that was too big for even his shoulders, but with a proper tuck into his belt and pants, he could make it all snug again. His lean physique and smooth scales allowed the shirt and vest to bunch up against each other, and would have already ordered a proper fit if it weren’t for the hopeless fact that no matter what he put on, the clothes just seemed to catch under his body armor. It was meant to protect him in case he should be shot at or jumped, patrolling the upper wards and making deliveries to the banks and other establishments requiring an armed guard for their deposits of funds. At his side he had a holster, one standard C-Sec relic of a gun meant for his wide grip and loaded with the safety on. He was familiar enough with it, having practiced on virtual targets in C-Sec’s training bay for enhanced weapons tactics.</p><p>As he approached the Bank of Trust, he caught a whiff of some scent that struck him as familiar, but being that he had to rendezvous with the branch manager, he would have to explore it after he’d made the drop.</p><p>And that’s when he saw her.</p><p>Dark, smooth hair, looped over her ear, talking and flirting with the Human manager, Brand Masato was his name, and equally was he engaged with the pretty female. She had long legs under a red hem with white little heels he could imagine taking off with his teeth, were his mouth so able. <em>There’s always a way to find out. . .</em></p><p> </p><p>“<em>Shit</em>,” Joker hissed, looking over his shoulder at the sight of C-Sec regalia and a Drell that appeared the same height as the Turian and Koshisigre, “whatever you two are doing, Tali, make it fast. I doubt she knows there’s C-Sec sniffing her out.”</p><p>Garrus studied the Drell guard walking into the Bank of Trust and making right for Lana. He looked about for Koshisigre.</p><p>“Where the Hell is he?”</p><p> </p><p>“Say, who is this beautiful sight?”</p><p>Lana turned and stared at the Drell smiling down at her, his black eyes barely revealing the telltale sign of deeper colored irises underneath.</p><p>“Kolyat!” The man named Brand was just as surprised to see him even when he had been expecting the officer to visit. He graciously accepted the bag in which loose coin and bills had been offered through various customers throughout the day that preferred an untraceable means of purchasing power. “This here is Lana Clarke. Would you believe she has an account with us through her husband, William Clarke?”</p><p>“I know Will,” Kolyat said, sounding more or less disappointed. He checked her hand, frowning at the lack of a ring, and looked back into the green eyes staring back at him. “Lucky man. He might be wondering where his wife is without her ring, however.”</p><p>“I must have misplaced it,” she said, a little too quick. “Gee, look at the time.” She turned to the manager, barely acknowledging her cuff or even the clock on the wall. “I’ll expect that account to be opened within the hour. Do you think you can do that for us? It’s important.”</p><p>Brand smiled, a practiced grin with polished teeth that bespoke his second nature to market appeal and modeling perfection when it came to handling many species’ money, particularly Humans’.</p><p>“You are certain, Ms. Clarke? I would require two signings from yourself and your spouse. Such short notice would require some expedition of funds to ensure the account is at least an allowable amount furnished for your pressing needs.”</p><p>Lana felt the walls closing in. This had been a very bad idea. Caught between the manager and the officer, she backed up and bumped into none other than Garrus.</p><p>“You done here?”</p><p>He blinked at her, waiting for a sign.</p><p><em>We need to run</em>, she mouthed.</p><p><em>No shit,</em> he thought.</p><p>Kolyat caught her arm, taking a long hard look at the woman and running through the files in his memory.</p><p>
  <em>Lana Clarke, banned from flight, Citadel Watch Top 80, learned martial arts, military warfare, Star of Terra, extremely dangerous biotic, report at once if sighted.</em>
</p><p>“Wait a minute,” Kolyat drawled, ignoring the warning growl of the Turian standing pressed to her back, “you’re not supposed to be here.”</p><p>“Run.”</p><p>Garrus pushed Lana out of the way and shoved the Drell into the manager standing behind him. The assault took Kolyat off guard, but he recovered quickly and latched onto the Turian’s armor, dragging him down from running out with the Human by sheer pressure of weight. Garrus couldn’t handle the strength of the Drell bearing down on his back, surprisingly heavy and strong. His yellow eyes shot up to Lana in the doorway as she flared in biotic light and prepared to administer a field of dark energy on the Drell.</p><p>Just as she raised her fist to direct the flow of power, Koshisigre’s hand grabbed her arm and pushed it across her body, sending the power charge into an array of jewelry set on display from the nearby museum for the bank customers’ intrigue and enjoyment. Glass and gems shattered, the shelving collapsed and security alarms going off.</p><p>“What are you doing?” She stared at the black eyes looking back at her.</p><p>Torn between answering and protecting them, Koshisigre pinched her neck between thumb and forefinger, knocking her clearly unconscious so that she fell backward over his wrist as limp as a rag. Koshisigre looked at the Drell and manager staring at him in surprise, Garrus shoving the blue and black Drell off and rising to run for the entrance.</p><p>“What are you waiting for?” he growled at Koshisigre. “Get moving before they collect their senses and contact backup!”</p><p>Drell looked at each other, Kolyat’s mouth hanging open, his face slowly showing realization as it dawned visibly between his glances to the woman in Koshisigre’s arms and the face of the green and black Drell.</p><p>Garrus grabbed Koshisigre’s sleeve and dragged him backwards, trilling sharply as he saw an armed guard of C-Sec moving steadily down the avenue carrying rifles and body armor.</p><p>“We’re in trouble,” he growled over the shrill alarms.</p><p>“I know,” Koshisigre said, reeling on his heel.</p><p>Jostling Lana as they ran, Garrus and Drell started a sprint through the wards, jumping over rails and passing her hand and foot down walls as each moved fast as varren between the shops and gardens.</p><p>Kolyat pushed off the floor and took after them, a blur of blue as he pumped his long legs in pursuit of the trio. He only wanted the woman since she was the real threat to the Council, not the Drell, and he could probably jail the Turian, but he hardly cared for him either.</p><p>Running through the encroaching security who were only arriving to escort a dignitary docking above the upper wards by the tower hub of the Citadel, he didn’t bother to alert them as to why he was running, though they asked where he was going. They would only slow him up, and he didn’t want them to know who the other Drell was.</p><p>He certainly knew.</p><p>“Catch her!” Garrus dropped Lana to the next level of the stepped gardens, then hauled himself over the wall and dropped the fifteen feet, regaining his stride after Koshisigre. They moved swift, surprisingly light on their feet despite the Human woman over their arms and passed in between them.</p><p>“Where’s Tali and Joker?” Koshisigre asked, breathing steady as they fell into pace and then had to separate around a family of Asari, the androgynous female species turning to stare at them as they fled passed.</p><p>“I told them to take off. We’ll meet them later at the ship,” Garrus replied, looking left and right for a place to duck into and hide. There was a tunnel up ahead that led into a skycar store. Between that and a salon for species with actual hair, a stairwell led higher up onto another concourse. “That way,” he trilled.</p><p>Pivoting on the balls of their feet, Koshisigre and Garrus ran up the thirty steps and bent left at the top, careening into the last sight they wanted to see.</p><p>Kolyat threw a stasis out at their arrival, catching the Turian’s foot so he tripped and fell, lower leg useless.</p><p>“You’ll put her down right there if you know what’s good for you,” Kolyat growled, bearing a biotic ball of energy forth to send at the downed Turian.</p><p>“Kolyat, please, let us go.”</p><p>Garrus’s right mandible flared at the sound of recognition and at Koshisigre’s use of a name. He pushed himself up on his hands and stared over his shoulder at the confrontation between both Drell over Lana.</p><p>“You need to put her down and leave, or I won’t hesitate to report you were here with her. Now.”</p><p>Kolyat wouldn’t budge. Behind his lenses, he was watching the exposed neck of the woman hanging limp in the other’s arms and going between her and the Drell he was contending with.</p><p>“Put her down. . . And leave. Or I’ll never speak to you again.”</p><p>A squawk on the radio at Kolyat’s collar issued out a set of codes meant as alerts for their activity.</p><p>Koshisigre watched Kolyat move his face towards the radio, blue and black striated fingers pinching the receiver buttons.</p><p>“Please. . .”</p><p>“Here on upper ward deck forty B. Kidnapping in progress. Isolated top watch list Lana Shephard, also Clarke, a 940 forbidden from travel to Citadel. Please send units to this location and track my transmitter.”</p><p>Koshisigre took a step backward, making ready to run, but Kolyat flinched and withdrew his firearm, holding it on his target, the Drell.</p><p>“Don’t. . . Make. . . Me. . . Dad.”</p><p>“Ah, shit. . .” Garrus groaned, hobbling onto one foot and pulling out a Razor he’d had hidden in the left compartment of his thigh armor. He held it up at Kolyat and prepared to fire.</p><p>Koshisigre put Lana down and looked wistfully at the unconscious woman’s face. He glanced up at Kolyat, watching him still with the gun trained on him.</p><p>“Please take care of her,” Koshisigre said, stepping away from the red dress and reaching down to slip off her Savant.</p><p>“Leave it.”</p><p>Garrus improvised, sending a thrill of electricity from his omnitool into Kolyat’s outstretched arm. The young Drell cried out at the sharp singing pain and dropped his aim. When he reoriented from the shock, both Turian and Koshisigre were gone, and Lana was nowhere to be seen. Kolyat cursed and holstered his gun, still spinning a little from the bite of the charge that Garrus had issued.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You are not allowed to improvise anymore,” Garrus growled at Lana, who had come to outside a back alley corridor of several cafés and stores. She was rubbing her head over a pounding headache, blood rushing back into her temples.</p><p>“Fuck. . . What the Hell happened to me?”</p><p>“Your Drell buddy is what happened to you. He’s got a kid on the Citadel, the blue and black one we met back at the bank. What the Hell were you thinking going in there? You don’t believe a bank realizes wire fraud setup when they hear one? And if it weren’t for your buddy, I’d be in the slammer most definitely for having pushed that C-Sec son of his down.”</p><p>“Now we’re both screwed.”</p><p>“Are you always so genius, or is it only once a month with you Humans?”</p><p>She made a noise in her throat, half cough, half gargle. Lana leaned back against the wall of the alley and blew out. Utter disappointment. <em>Embarrassing</em>, she thought woundedly, <em>and now William will definitely know where I am.</em></p><p>“Where’s Koshisigre?”</p><p>“He went back to recover your outfit and Tali’s head gear. You couldn’t even keep that on longer than an hour. What’s the matter with you? Do you suffer from mental issues? Is it necessary for you to do stupid things?”</p><p>She held up a chit card she fished out from her dress front, which had a low cut reveal. Garrus narrowed his eyes at the item.</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>“The branch manager’s credit line. Go cash it out and distribute the funds to the address I’m sending you. It’s Tali, and she’ll have a new account funded with the manager’s own money.”</p><p>She flipped him the chit and set to dialing in a message through her Savant, which she waved over his own before settling back and smiling.</p><p>Garrus’s left mandible lifted partly on response as he slowly shook his head at her, pushing up to his feet which were now both fully functional.</p><p>“You’re a piece of work,” he chuckled, unable to repress himself.</p><p>“Survive, Garrus, survive.”</p><p>She watched him leave to take care of the account, fairly certain he would return. He didn’t like her, but he was loyal. It was the reason he’d gone into the Bank of Trust. He hadn’t had to do that and could have spared himself the hassle.</p><p>Lana thought then about the blue and black Drell. Was that Koshisigre’s son? <em>Kolyat</em>. She wasn’t going to let Koshisigre slip away from that one.</p><p><em>I’m really looking forward to our next conversation, if and when he gets back with my costume.</em> She glanced down atthe white heels and red dress, laughed at herself, and began to pull the mulebacks off.</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I can’t believe it,” Kolyat said to himself, nursing the burn up his arm and fingering the blister of scales along his wrist. “And that damn Turian electrocuted me. If I find that blue hide, I’ll personally see him to the barracks.”</p><p>“Bad day, lieutenant?” A blond man with gray eyes sat down next to him at the bar and made a snap of his fingers, ordering his usual from the barkeep. Kolyat looked over his right shoulder at Major William Clarke, the Alliance auditor.</p><p>“Hey, Will,” Kolyat said, moving his arm out of the way to make room for the big Human. “Just lost your wife for you, is all.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” Clarke mumbled, taking possession of the marbler that had been set in front of him full of ice and a clear liquid that smelled like potatoes. He tipped it back and drank, taking all the fluid but the ice. “Tell me how she looked to you.”</p><p>Kolyat resisted the urge to smile, but he was honest. “She looked good. Healthy. Clean. Dressed nicely too.”</p><p>“She wearing one of those skirts?”</p><p>“Red dress, white shoes,” Kolyat relinquished, glancing at the major.</p><p>“Sounds about right. Yup,” he sighed, breath holding the scent of liquor, “ex had a Hell of a pair of legs. She looks good in armor, too.”</p><p>“Ex?” Kolyat asked, his hopes suddenly rising unexpectedly. “You and your wife divorced?”</p><p>“Only a few days ago. It’s not common knowledge yet. Let’s keep it that way. Seems to help in pinning her down.”</p><p>“Why is she up here? Wouldn’t she be stuck on Earth?”</p><p>“No,” Clarke said, lighting a match to a bedi at his lips that he’d withdrawn from a silver case in his coat pocket. He wore a heavy tweed and leather, the type attorneys wore and accountants loved. But the major was anything but geeky or dapper. He was twice as large as Kolyat through the shoulders, and built for packing meat. The Peer General loved to send him to perform audits. People feared him. He was a court martial walking around in a suit, and no one questioned him.</p><p>“Tell you what, Kolyat.” He placed his big palm on the counter, and slid it over with a click. What he left behind when he removed it was a small credit chit with a silver tab in the middle. “You keep your head on a swivel for her and find her before she leaves this station, I’ll double what’s on that chit. You need the money, right?”</p><p>Kolyat stared at the bribe, licking the inside of his lips at the thought of what was on it.</p><p>“Really, sir? You want me just to find her?”</p><p>“I want you to find her and kill her. Kill whoever she’s with, too. She can’t leave this Citadel. And if you find her before another officer or assassin does, I’ll make you a full-fledged agent with his very own skycar and apartment. Give you all the whores you need if you want something like that, too. You like women, lieutenant? Drell or Asari? Maybe even Human?”</p><p>Kolyat’s skin turned cold. “Sir, I—“</p><p>“Atta’ boy, Kolyat. Don’t disappoint me. Because if you do,” he lowered his voice and leaned towards the Drell, “I’ll make sure you end up in the vats. You <em>and</em> your father.”</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana jerked to life in the corridor, having fallen asleep from the drowsiness being caused by the headache. She blinked rapidly and looked about, taking stock of her surroundings. There were barrels and reclamation disposal tubes covered by heavy ceramic tops. A Keeper was farther down the alley, picking up trash and licking the wrappers still holding debris. She watched in amusement as it held its strange insect eyes up to inspect her, then disliking what it saw probably, walked farther away on four legs, the fifth and sixth holding its collection of garbage hobby.</p><p>“Lana.” Garrus had come back. He stood up next to her, helping her to her feet. “No Koshisigre yet?”</p><p>The fact he had called her anything besides stupid, commander, or Clarke or Shephard was astonishing. Maybe she was winning onto his good side. He passed her the credit chit back she had given him and nodded.</p><p>“Funds are in. Tali and Joker are at a medical clinic loading up on supplies. I don’t trust the Human, but he seems to be doing alright by us so far.”</p><p>Lana accepted the credit chit, opened a ceramic plate next to her, and dropped it into the tube that would lead to the vats. She picked up her shoes and began walking back and forth in the alley, wondering where Koshisigre had gone and why he wasn’t back yet.</p><p>“We need to find me an ID still.”</p><p>“Fat chance, that,” Garrus griped, swinging his mandible loosely. “You can’t walk around without some type of face mask on. The Citadel will be on alert if that Drell son of Koshisigre’s reported you. I’m pretty certain he did.”</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“What.”</p><p>“Thanks for coming in after me, lending a claw like you did. I admit, I screwed the pooch on that one with the bank.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, we came out of it a success, didn’t we?”</p><p>“Yeah. . . I guess if you call this not being at a loss.” She indicated her self in her clothing, or lack of. Garrus offered a Turian grin.</p><p>“I confess, I don’t care much for your kind. . . But you in that dress is a kind sight for sore eyes.”</p><p>She chuckled, rubbing her brow and glancing up at him.</p><p>“Now if we can just find out what happened to your Drell boyfriend.”</p><p>“He’s not my boyfriend,” she replied, “not even close.”</p><p>Garrus laughed dryly. “Not what I’m smelling and hearing. Every time you two look at each other or touch each other, it’s pheromone central. He’d mate with you if he could. I know. I’m part animal like he is. Something you Humans only pretend at and then self-destroy when you get it right.” He swung his gaze to hers. “He’s got baggage though, Lana. You better be careful. He’ll take you down with him.”</p><p>“I don’t doubt it, Garrus, but I trust my intuition, and as much as Koshisigre alludes to not knowing, or feigning, I know he’s hiding something, and I know part of it has to do with that blue Drell of his.”</p><p>“You two both have kids. You should be able to relate.”</p><p>“Yeah. I guess so.”</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Saren took one look at the Salarian and didn’t like what he saw.</p><p>“Take him down to the cellars and give him a few doses worth of the artifacts. I want his head torn off afterwards.”</p><p>The Salarian kicked out the leg of the Geth carrying him and dropped to his feet.</p><p>Saren turned, watching him rise up and pull out a gun from the back of his jacket.</p><p>“You, stop. Go no farther,” the Salarian said, docking a clipped horn. “Indoctrination level high. You don’t know what you are doing.”</p><p>The pale Turian, nearly two times his height with the augmentations built in from repeated reconstruction and soldering on of new alloys provided by the Great Ones, took a Talon from its sheath physically attached to the back of his body, where he kept it close and convenient for opportunities such as this. His artificial eyes gleamed as he reeled back and sliced at the Salarian.</p><p>Mordin Solus jumped free in time, rolling into a corner and springing out. One on one, he was no match for the Turian, and wrapping his fingers around the handle of his gun, fired a shot through the left eye. Saren snarled, wheeling away, black goop dripping out of the orbital, but unfazed, he moved forward again, lashing and slashing at the Salarian that his Geth had caught outside the base.</p><p>“I’ll teach you a lesson or two about biology, Mr. Solus. You think you can come in here and sneak out with one of my Krogan, you’ll be proven wrong. On guard, Salarian.”</p><p>He hooked Mordin’s arm, driving the Talon into his hand and pinning it to the wall. With a deft flick of his claw, he buried his metal finger into the Salarian’s jaw.</p><p>Mordin cried out in pain.</p><p>“How does that feel, Solus? You think you can track me here and stop me from building this army? You’re too late. I should feed you to what I have waiting already outside.” He wrenched his finger out and dropped the Salarian, sheathing the Talon back into its holster. “Take him. Give him to the Krogan to eat. That way he can die serving for what he believed in: new pets for a galaxy to fear.”</p><p>As he observed the Geth leave, Saren thought about all of the others he had in the bays awaiting their testing of indoctrination levels. They were his to experiment on, his to be commanded if only the Great Ones would give him their power. The Dragon’s Teeth were enough for now, but he wanted more. He had had to hire far more than he wanted from the Terminus, and they would all have to die when he was through using them. His Geth were far, far superior, with much less overhead in terms of cost. He would have to come up with more money to furnish to the syndicates and keep them raiding the colonies along the Attican Traverse, bringing him victims, subjects, the occasional spies he could indoctrinate and send to work in the mines.</p><p>He should have thought of it on Eden Prime, before the attack. Instead of butchering anyone who remained in the way, he should have had the Geth round them up into the Great Ones’ ship and bring them here to Virmire for the first studies and have these done with earlier. Now he was making up for lost time, what with the hassle that bitch Human had caused him. And the dockworker. He’d already handled him.</p><p>He pondered the reports he had heard from the Salarians about Sur’Kesh. What if they had developed a cure for the Genophage? How could he use that to his advantage?</p><p>“Hmm, on second thought, bring the one named Mordin Solus to lab three. I will start with him there. Why slaughter a decent spy when I can make him work for me?”</p><p>Saren chuckled to himself, knowing his order to the Geth would fly in seconds throughout the others taking up security on the base and guarding the Krogan and indoctrinated. Mordin would become one of the latter, and if his reputation was as prestigious as it was said to be, then he would have no dilemma finding out for him what he wanted on Sur’Kesh.</p><p>“Yes. . . No use putting a talented mind to waste. . .”</p>
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<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Chapter 25</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana sat down on the reclamation tube, kicking her heel against the cylinder beneath and flicking the red hem up and down with her motions. <em>Where is he?</em> She pulled open her Savant and dialed in Tali’s omnitool.</p><p>“Shephard!”</p><p>“Tali, any word from Koshisigre?”</p><p>“None, Shephard. I’m worried.”</p><p>“Yeah, me too. Listen, if you see a mask or replacement for your suit, go ahead and buy it with the credits we’ve funded into that account you opened.”</p><p>“I made another deposit into a second bank, just so there would be some complexity in case our helpful donor matches up the numbers.”</p><p>“Good idea. The numbers don’t lie, however, so spend it on what you can that we can use.”</p><p>“Alright. Are you coming back to the ship soon?”</p><p>Lana looked over at Garrus, swinging his arms and testing out his injured left mandible. She looked at the hem of dress, and bare toes.</p><p>“I’m going to need to move with lights out on the station, if that ever happens here. I’m a little too conspicuous now, even moreso than when I left the ship.”</p><p>“Okay. Joker and I will make do until you return.”</p><p>“Tali.”</p><p>“Yes, Shephard?”</p><p>“I like Joker, but be careful, okay? He worked for my ex-husband, so if you hear any mention of a William Clarke, find out what it is, and if you see a big Human with blond hair who looks like he could make mincemeat with his hands, get out as fast as you can.”</p><p>“Oh, Shephard, you’re scaring me. He sounds like a brute.”</p><p>“He’s just a big guy, Tali, but I don’t want you getting wrapped up in him.”</p><p>The omnitool went silent. Lana sighed.</p><p>“If you’re so concerned about him, why’d you marry the guy?”</p><p>“Too many details, Garrus. Number one, I had his child. Number two, it’s none of your business.”</p><p>“Nice way to lay on the new bonding,” he grumbled, moving back into his pacing and mandibular testing.</p><p>Lana tilted her eyebrows at him.</p>
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<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Chapter 26</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thane watched the man that was Lana’s ex-husband depart from his son’s side in the bar. He waited until there was no further sign of Clarke’s agents milling about and waiting, hoping an opportunity to emerge. But Thane was patient.</p><p>His son grabbed the chit on the bar and pocketed it, paid his tab, and rolling down his sleeve over the burnt arm attacked by Garrus’s electrical weaponry, left his icepack behind and went out the back door of the restaurant. Thane followed, inconspicuous among the other Drell milling about in the Kahjic establishment.</p><p>Moving into line with his son, he walked along with him until the young Drell paused. He didn’t turn around.</p><p>“You again. What do you want?” His voice was hard, edgy.</p><p>“I came to check on you. I’m sorry, Kolyat. I truly am. I did not expect to see you this way.”</p><p>“You were protecting a wanted woman. You’re aiding and abetting.”</p><p>“No longer kidnapping?”</p><p>Kolyat’s blue ridged crests shook from side to side. “You got yourself into some bad trouble again, Dad. This time there’s no where for me to hide. . . I have to do something. Something bad that I don’t want to do, but if I don’t. . .”</p><p>“What did William Clarke say to you?”</p><p>Kolyat turned. “He told me to kill his wife,” he whispered softly, “his ex-wife or whatever. . . And to kill anyone who was helping her. He wouldn’t tell me why. Just that she couldn’t leave the station. He even offered me a bribe and then threatened to have me killed and you, too, if I didn’t follow through. . . Why would he think that I was his best shot at this? Does he think something happened between you and his ex-wife?”</p><p>“No, Kolyat, I have not. . . Look,” he held up his hand towards his son, “I am only protecting her so I can get her far from the station. I can’t tell you anything else—“</p><p>“You’re setting me up to die, Dad. Do you even hear yourself? I just told you that I have to prevent her from leaving here. At all. And you’re going to try and do just that. You don’t know Will like I do, Dad. He’s not your run-of-the-mill accountant or attorney. He’s a gear. He’s part of a bigger system that requires him in order to function, so if he needs help, he’ll get it if he asks. <em>And I am part of that system!”</em></p><p>Thane rubbed his hand over his crest and worried. He couldn’t help his son and Lana and fulfill his contract altogether, could he?</p><p>“Lana does not deserve this,” he mumbled.</p><p>Kolyat’s keen ears picked up the words. He took two steps forward, grinding his teeth. “You do not deserve me if all you think about is what she doesn’t deserve.” He calmed, however. “Granted, I don’t think she deserves what Will’s got planned for her either.”</p><p>“She has a son, Kolyat, that she left in his custody by his demand.”</p><p>“How old,” Kolyat asked somberly.</p><p>“Twenty-three Earth months. He is much younger than yourself.”</p><p>“What do you want me to do with that, Dad? What do I do with the knowledge she’s got a kid tied to the man who wants to kill her?”</p><p>“Why does he want her killed?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I said that.”</p><p>“Yes, Kolyat, but we need to understand why. . . What is motivating him to make this call, and why does he think you are the one to handle it? You are hardly what I would consider murder material, though you were quick today and took out my colleague.”</p><p>“Is he okay? I still want to beat his ass for what he did to my arm, but you guys were running and I needed to stop you.”</p><p>Thane grinned despite the severity of their topic. “He will survive. I am more worried about you.”</p><p>“Dad.”</p><p>He blinked at him.</p><p>“I need the Human woman. You have to give her to me. Maybe I don’t have to kill her. I’ll just hand her over to Will—“</p><p>“Kolyat—“</p><p>“Dad, he’ll kill us!”</p><p>The alley held their voices like a cradle. A hush followed Kolyat’s snarl. Thane covered his eyes, not knowing what to do for the first time in his life. Having a child made things complicated, and answers weren’t always so black and white. He couldn’t simply throw his life away without impacting that of his son, and the idea of losing Kolyat after finally reconnecting with the boy through so much time. . . Needless to say, he loved his son and he had done wrong to him in the past. Lana was a different story, one that Thane wanted to know and see the end of, but not this end that Will Clarke had set up for her. And why Kolyat? Did he know of Thane’s purpose? Was it because he had seen him with Lana at the IMO, or anywhere for that matter? It was not like they were hiding their feelings for one another. Thane liked her intensely. She was charming and made him feel good when she wasn’t trying to fight everyone or pull stunts like at the ISS, but he had been angry more for the fact they had been bonding and she had duped him.</p><p>Now he understood why she was so quick to break trust. If Will was ready to have her annihilated, the mother of his son, what must have marriage for Lana been like with a man who was turning out to be more poisonous than Thane’s own venom?</p><p>And then there was that to be concerned about, should he and Lana ever cross the line of friendship into something more. . .</p><p>He was getting too far ahead of himself. How could he be thinking of such things when his son’s life was at stake if he didn’t provide him with Lana?</p><p>“I need to head back, Kolyat. Will you be at your apartment tonight?”</p><p>“I have work in the morning, so yeah I’ll be at the apartment on eighty block.”</p><p>“Let me have the chit Will gave you.”</p><p>Kolyat made a face as though he weren’t serious. “Why?”</p><p>“I would like to make sure it is not booby-trapped. There could be any number of ways that he could try and kill you, especially if he knows who I am and what I represent.”</p><p>“And what do you represent, Dad?” Kolyat asked harshly, removing the chit from his pocket and passing this to Thane.</p><p>For a moment, while Thane ran his scanner for powder residue and explosive substances, he reflected on all the dangers one such as he could represent to a Human charged with hunting down criminal fraud. Aside from his employer, what would determine his son as a viable inlet to Thane? He almost smiled at the thought, for it would be too simple and petty a crime, but for all the books of great drama and tragedy, there was one theme that popped up time and time again.</p><p>Jealousy.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Chapter 27</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The red dress stood out to him as he returned to the alley where he’d left them. Then her hair, her face, her eyes.</p><p>“Lana. Garrus. It’s Koshisigre.”</p><p>“The Hell you are,” Lana spat, rushing over to him, heels and toes slapping, “where have you been? And what did you do to me? I have had the worst God damn headache since last you touched me in the bank!” She balled her fist, but stepped away from him, torn between kissing Koshisigre and slapping him. She had been worried sick in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time. It was different from the worry she had for her own son, which had been nibbling her recently, but this. . . Waiting for Koshisigre as the lights dimmed for the night cycle, worrying about Tali alone on the Villetta with Joker, or even Garrus who was acting weird in that he was at one moment psychotic, the next friendly. . . She needed something to ground her in a place that experienced more zero-gravity as a norm than the opposite. “Where were you?” she finally allowed herself to ask more calmly.</p><p>Garrus looked over at the two from the other end of the alley.</p><p>“I learned something important that I need to share with you. It is about your husband.”</p><p>“Ex-husband,” she and Garrus said flatly.</p><p>Lana stared over her shoulder at him, and the Turian turned away.</p><p>“I have to tell you that I saw my son receiving a bribe from your ex-husband to ensure his compliance to a very strict request,” Koshisigre went on, removing from his coat the folded silks and head gear that Tali had helped Lana dress into. “Your husband has put a hit on you, Lana, with my own son.”</p><p>“Fantastic,” she replied, taking the offered wear and visor. “And so you are officially compromised. I guess that’s the end of the honeymoon.”</p><p>Koshisigre frowned.</p><p>Lana turned her face away from him, seeking something down the alley. Anything. Garrus had slipped off somewhere. <em>Probably fed up with pheromones.</em></p><p>“I told my son my thoughts, in hopes that would help deter him. He does not want to harm you, but he mistakenly believes if he brings you personally to William, that will make amends.”</p><p>“Amends for what?”</p><p>“For not letting Will kill him and I because he failed to prevent you from leaving the station and ended your life.”</p><p>“I’m leaving the station.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>She looked at him.</p><p>“If I leave, your son could possibly die. I swear you told me your son doesn’t hinder you from your service. So what exactly are you servicing that stands with more importance over your son who has no mother? You said she’s deceased!” She poked him in the pec of his chest.</p><p>Koshisigre gripped her wrist, his heart filling with ire.</p><p>“Don’t you understand, Lana? I am sworn to a secret agency that requires my service for until I bring what it is I am required to fulfill the oath. That is you,” he said with finality, looking into her eyes and feeling completely at her mercy, “I am expected to keep my word, and even if it takes me years to do so, I will bring you to where you are required to further your cause. I can’t back out either, or the same fate Will offers my son for failing to settle you in resting peace on this Citadel will also transpire here, or elsewhere,” he hissed, breathing hotly on her, moving to her ear, kissing down on the sensitive canal.</p><p>Lana gasped, curling up against him, a silent, hot coax for more.</p><p>Koshisigre held back, not daring to go any further. He’d already done too much. Practically panting with want, he leaned back, albeit very slowly. He could see the coal burning in her eyes. She wanted him.</p><p>He wanted her.</p><p>“Koshisigre—“</p><p>“Would you two knock it off already?” Garrus thumped down the alley, back towards them from wherever he’d gone off to. “Spirits damn it all, I can hear your heavy breathing from a mile away. As for the <em>fuck</em> who is your <em>ex</em>-husband, we can make a work around.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Lana worked her skirt down, having had it worked up by Koshisigre’s firm hand over the thigh with the scar.</p><p>The memory of her skin would linger. Along with the cry she’d made under his lips on her ear.</p><p>“What does Will want? He wants his wife back. If he can’t have her, he won’t let her leave, not with a baby to go home to. So you need to go back to Will. Forget this guy’s son. Go straight to Will right now, give him his ship, tell him that you’re sorry, you love him, yaddy-yaddy-ya.” Garrus pointed at Koshisigre and himself. “You and I, we’ll go find Saren. Lana can go back to Earth and do what she does best. Sit on a computer and tap out trouble, or pester the IMO. Not like she’s learning anything useful down there compared to what I have access to up here.”</p><p>“No! As much as I love my son, I am not going back to Earth. I came all this way for a reason and I am still making progress. We came to the Citadel to stock up and leave. . . After I make some additional connections, that is,” she added, adjusting her dress straps. Flustered suddenly, she started to undress and pull on the skin weave, throwing off the top her red straps followed by the bodice and then the skirt.</p><p>“Woman!” Garrus growled. “Unbelievable! The man’s son’s life is at stake and you’re going to tell him bad luck like that?”</p><p>“Garrus, you seriously need some mood stabilizer because you swing like a seesaw.”</p><p>“What is that?”</p><p>“Never mind. It doesn’t make sense anyway.”</p><p>Garrus clutched his eyes and stalked away as Lana pulled on her sleeves and began zipping up the weave. She reached around back and finished the zipper, then deflated the suit until it sucked in against her. Holding the helmet above her head, she was about to lower it down when she stopped and stared at Koshisigre. She wet her lips.</p><p>“If you ever kiss my ear like that again, I’ll hit you. Just so you’ve been warned.” She pulled the helmet down, not giving him a chance to talk, and began to tie and knot the silks over her body as best she could remember.</p><p>Koshisigre stopped her, as he had memorized the array of the setup, and removing her hands, began to rewind and bind the silk around her body, correcting the mistakes, and fitting it perfectly to his memory of her in the crew cabin of the Villetta, where he had found himself so extraordinarily involved with her even from three steps away. He rubbed the smooth silk into place over the skin weave and danced his fingers up her arm, nuzzling her nose before brushing her mouth with his lips and then reconfiguring the visor to its clasps.</p><p>“You’re pushing your luck, pal,” she said through the stunting speakers.</p><p>“I know,” he smiled, licking his lower lip and rolling it into his mouth to pin under his top front teeth.</p><p>“We’re going to have to figure something out for your boy. I can’t feel comfortable knowing he’s in danger because of me.”</p><p>“So what does the brave Lana Shephard suggest we do?”</p><p>“Does he have a place he stays at during the night? And how well-lit is it?”</p><p>Koshisigre arched his eye ridge.</p><p>“What exactly do you have in mind?”</p><p>“I’m thinking he should come along for the ride.”</p><p>“No. He absolutely must not. This is too dangerous for him and he needs to remain on the Citadel.”</p><p>“The best place for him is with his father.”</p><p>“The same could be said for you and David.”</p><p>“True, but a boy needs his father more than the mother eventually. . . I think.”</p><p>“You are not convincing me.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Chapter 28</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kolyat adjusted his arm, holding it up to consider the burn mark that covered part of the lower half’s exterior. He was impressed with the healing after the angry blistering and mark he had received, but lowered this after his fascination was served and turned on the vids. <em>Something to livestream and take my mind off that bullshit for a while with my father and Lana Clarke</em>. Kolyat settled against his sofa, drinking in a beer, and sprawled lazily across the furniture, lifting his heel up, blue and striped black with a hint of green, and placed this on the coffee table.</p><p>A few news items came up, one featuring <em>the</em> Lana Clarke, the Fallen Star of Terra. He listened, interested, looking at the faces that flicked onto the screen. Strangely enough, there was only a blurred mugshot of someone with fair skin and brown hair, but it didn’t strike him as the same Lana he had seen. <em>Surely they have to have something more recent than that. It didn’t even look like her. Media. Get their hands on whatever they can.</em> He listened more tiredly to the news coming in from the Attican Traverse, the rampant attacks on mining colonies and other adventurous folk that had been sent out to settle among the bordering belt of the Terminus Systems. He felt sorry for them out there. <em>Aya, even Kahje and Rakhana are probably suffering the same ordeals since Alliance doesn’t send anyone out to check on things anymore.</em> Obviously to him there was a cover up or something being hidden, but he was just a Drell on the Citadel making ends meet. What could he do?</p><p>A knock on the door made Kolyat come alive. Picking up his shirt and hauling it over his back, slipping both hands into the sleeves, he grabbed his gun and checked the chamber, making sure it was ready and the safety was off. Kolyat approached the door through the hallway of his apartment on block eighty, and opened the eye screen.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>A Quarian?</p><p> </p><p>Lana waited patiently, hearing the marks and scratches of a door about to slide open. As soon as it did, and Kolyat stepped out with his shirt hanging open, blue muscles black with striping and whorls, she raised her Hammer Eight and walked him backward into the apartment.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this some type of joke?” he asked, half smirking at the get up of the buxom Quarian. She was not the average build, slender and waiflike, but fuller in the chest and thighs. <em>This has to be Bailey or Clarke’s idea of a joke. Maybe I’m getting some more convincing.</em> But by the way that Quarian held her pistol and aimed for him to sit, Kolyat was beginning to second guess that maybe this was probably not a special service call or another type of gift.</p><p> </p><p>Lana kept her breathing steady. She didn’t like having to force entry into someone’s home, especially Koshisigre’s son, and by the point of a gun, but he seemed to be enjoying it. She thought how funny it was to be introduced so informally to the son of the Drell that was apparently now her chief in charge of personal escort, and hoped she could pull off this plan right.</p><p>“Kolyat Krios?” she asked through the amplifier, her voice clear but affected by the filters.</p><p>“You sound familiar,” was his only reply.</p><p><em>Damn it.</em> The amplifier wasn’t muffling her voice well enough. <em>How the Hell do Drell remember everything so much?</em></p><p>“You need to get dressed and come with me. We’re leaving the Citadel. It’s for your own safety.”</p><p>Kolyat’s eyes became shrewd. He sat forward in the chair he had sat down in, a lazy boy that rocked, and leaned on one elbow as he put the other behind his back to the gun he’d hid in his waistpant.</p><p>“This have to do with something that happened to me earlier today?” he asked, looking more than a little too sly and confident.</p><p>Lana assessed his size. About the same height as Koshisigre, darker markings, pretty dense in head and most likely body from what she remembered, Garrus having been pinned by him at the bank.</p><p>“What does it matter if it does or doesn’t?” she retorted. “Button up and grab your necessities. Leave the gun where it is.”</p><p>His eyes widened at her surmise. Lana smiled behind the visor, but he couldn’t see through it.</p><p>“I can see who you are,” he said, after a pause, “and I don’t think you want to be doing this. I’m on the verge of fulfilling my obligation and just handing you in. Pushing me out of my own apartment for a potential hostage negotiation is not moving my decision into your favor, Ms. Clarke.”</p><p>
  <em>How the Hell. . . Must be something with the eyes. It’s probably clearer for them to see through dark things. Note to self.</em>
</p><p>“Okay, big guy. It’s Shephard, by the way. Clarke is my married name, and as I’m sure you know since you’ve been talking with my bastard ex, I’m not his wife anymore. Courtesy of his own prewritten divorce docs. But tell me something, Mr. Krios. Why do you think Will Clarke wants to take out the mother of his child?”</p><p>“I don’t know. What I do know is, it would be a damn shame if you’re the same woman in that suit that I saw in the red dress and white heels earlier today.”</p><p><em>What a smooth bastard.</em> She liked him already. “You think you can flatter me, you must be dumber than your father.”</p><p>“What did you say?”</p><p>He stood up, unafraid to walk into the gun and let it press into his neck.</p><p>“My father ever tell you about me, Clarke?”</p><p>“Shephard, and yes, that you at least existed.”</p><p>“Did he ever tell you about my mother. . . His wife?”</p><p>“No, of course not.”</p><p>“Well maybe you should have known,” Kolyat growled threateningly, “because I don’t give a fuck if you shoot me or not. And if I know my father, he’ll have chosen a woman who won’t dare shoot a child of someone he loves. You see,” he slapped the wrist away, expertly maneuvering the gun from her hand and sliding his arm around her neck, twisting her tight and locking her from behind with his other fist on her wrist. Lana tugged underneath the arm, pushing her hood up to try and breath through the forearm lock bracing against her neck with crushing threat. Kolyat went on, enjoying the surprise by which he’d taken her. “My mother died, and I had to watch her life slip away, you understand? I live day in to day out remembering what she looked like as she died and her murderers having done what they did. So I don’t give a fuck if you point a gun at me. You could have shot me in the face for all I care, because nothing gets to me since the day I saw my own life leak out of her eyes. You get me. . . Shephard?”</p><p>He tightened around her like a vice. Lana unclasped the visor and released it so she could breathe, dropping the gear and hoping it didn’t break. She grit her teeth and choked, feeling his chest swell as he applied a one-armed sleeper and pressed all of him up against her.</p><p>“I’m going to take you to Will. Leave you with him to figure out what to do with you, and then you can forget my father. . . Though I have a feeling he won’t forget about you. . . Now who’s dumb?”</p><p>“It was just an expression,” she bit, having hoped it would piss him off enough to distract him from the real surprise in store.</p><p>Kolyat caught a whiff of something faint and foul. He turned as the Turian from the bank earlier that had singed him with the electrical charge swung his right fist in a balled knuckle of greaves. Before Kolyat hit the floor and all went black, he heard someone whisper over Lana’s coughs for air, asking her if she was okay.</p><p>And then the blackness overtook him, carrying him away to places where a Drell mind harbored only nightmares.</p><p> </p><p>He came to in a cold place, looking around and wincing at the tightness in his neck.</p><p>He was in a room, aboard a ship by the sight of a curved bulkhead pointing out from the wall and the lines of overhead pipes and plumbing bare for him to see.</p><p>Lana was the first person he set eyes on. She was undressed from the tight black garb and silks, wearing only pants and a bra and about to pull her shirt back on.</p><p>The bra was gray. He committed it to memory, along with the scar on her arm. The profile of her face as she winced and squeezed her neck.</p><p>And the green and black hands that came to inspect it.</p><p>“Are you okay?” Koshisigre asked, worried his son’s strength could have caused the commander tracheal damage.</p><p>“Just sore. Look, mind him,” she said, pointing at Kolyat, “he’s been coming in and out for the past hour, but I think he’s finally recovering from Garrus’s shiner.”</p><p>The punch that had knocked Kolyat out.</p><p>“Nice to know you’re sacrificing the lamb meant to be slaughtered so you could surprise me with that wolf you sent in while I was distracted,” Kolyat hoarsed gruffly over the gravel quality of Drell tonal textures.</p><p>Lana looked up as Garrus came in and glared at the blue and black Drell with the swollen eye.</p><p>“You learn how to manhandle females through C-Sec like that,” he asked dangerously low, “or you part of the new Terror Ops program they’ve initiated since I was canned.”</p><p>Kolyat opened his good right eye a little wider.</p><p>“You used to work for C-Sec?”</p><p>“Until about ‘84. Yeah.”</p><p>“Why’d you leave? Assaulting an officer? Maybe roughing up a witness? Or just plain being a dick.”</p><p>“He’s got a real attitude,” Lana murmured to Koshisigre.</p><p>“I told you before you decided that he is a piece of work.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, you also didn’t tell me he’s nearly suicidal.”</p><p>“Did he give you the story about his mother?”</p><p>“Yeah. . .?”</p><p>Koshisigre sighed and offered her a sad smile. “It was not a good way to go, but that story aside for another day, he often uses it to make himself seem tougher than he really is. My son is gentle and kindhearted. Not the other way around as you have experienced, but he knows how to defend himself.”</p><p>“Something you taught him?”</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>“And it helps that he’s the strength of three times a normal Human being,” she remarked sarcastically.</p><p>Koshisigre chuckled as they both turned to look at the Turian and Koshisigre’s son exchanging barbs about one or the other’s track records.</p><p>“You’re not even an officer,” Garrus sniped, rubbing his knuckles. “You’re a drem. A little boy in a grown-up body.”</p><p>“Hey, avarair, you ever think of getting that paint put back on your greaves for the shield? You must think going solo from the force is going to make you a bad ass. No wonder you’re paling around with him and her.”</p><p>“And me,” Joker said as he hobbled into the room to check out the new recruit. “Hi, I’m Joker.”</p><p>Tali stepped in behind him, and Kolyat’s eyes immediately fell to her form behind his lenses.</p><p>Growling at his father, “What in Hell is going on? You work with a team now? I thought you were Mister Solo.”</p><p>“Things. . . Have been changing,” Koshisigre said.</p><p>“Koshi,” Lana started to say, turning her face towards him.</p><p>Kolyat’s eyes went wide to narrow. “What’s she calling you?”</p><p>Lana looked at Kolyat suddenly, interested to see where this would lead. Koshisigre shook his head at his son from aside her face.</p><p>“Koshisigre? The painter from Rakhana?” Kolyat started to laugh when he saw the expressions on the other faces, even the Quarian through her visor and his tints. “You don’t know who he is yet? You don’t know my father?”</p><p>“We know he’s your father, dumb ass,” Garrus said. “We’ve already crossed that bridge. That’s why you’re here. Otherwise I would have seen you smashed by her dark energy field if he hadn’t stepped in to <em>save your scrawny blue ass</em>.”</p><p>Kolyat laughed some more, shaking his thicker crest. “I think it’s hilarious you care so much for my father and you don’t know who he is. More of the same game, Dad.”</p><p>Looking between Koshisigre and Kolyat, and seeing the look of misery on Koshisigre’s face, Lana stepped in. “Listen, I don’t care who your father’s real name is or what he’s really doing here, whatever. I need you to listen real close, because what I’m about to tell you is going to blow your mind.” She snapped her fingers and pointed for everyone to take a seat in the crew cabin of the men’s quarters. “Grab a seat on the beds. I’m going to tell you about Eden Prime and why I’m here to this day and not some corpse in a grave on Earth. Do you understand? All of you, sit down. Tali, come sit here by me. Joker, over there. Koshisigre, whatever your name is, go sit by your son, and Garrus. . . Just stand there.”</p><p>“Are you going to make us dance, too?” he asked, hefting his bulk onto the other foot.</p><p>“No, but you’ll want to play hocus pocus and hope this shit isn’t real, because I’m about to add to your nightmares.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Chapter 29</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Armed with little else than her canteen, Lana struggled off the docks of the launching station for Colony 16, Eden Prime. She coughed up blood into her visor, pushed the shield of the face guard up, and sucked in air. Her eyes were bleeding and she couldn’t see.</p><p>“Help. . . Help me. . .”</p><p>Her strangled cry, thick with blood and scum from the bowels of her stomach, was heard by a few marines scouring the leftovers of the site. There were Geth bodies everywhere, along with dead husks of some version of Human form.</p><p>Lana’s cry for help reached louder, the images on the back of her retina forming people in her mind that were dying, screaming for help in silent pain, extinguished before the image of the ships that were landing and killing everyone. Furrows of flesh were made by reaping claws, talons raking across earth and digging deeper into soft parts and eyes.</p><p>“Help. . . Me. . .”</p><p>A shadow fell over her, but Lana couldn’t see what it was. She felt something fall over her, covering her from head to foot.</p><p>“No. . . Please. . . Don’t take. . .”</p><p>She shook as her body was lifted and the rest of the blanket covered her. She couldn’t hear the voices. She couldn’t see a thing, but for the images still playing like a video over and over in her mind. There were flying ships, faces she had not seen among any of the Aliens she’d been forced into combat with or on expedition. Faces that cried death, fatigue, warning. Starved, dying faces, maniacal monstrosities, terrors no Human should have to fall asleep with as the last images of her mind.</p><p>Something huge and monstrous stalked towards her, shoulders ripped through with spikes holding skulls and arms pierced through each barb.</p><p>“No. . . No!” she screamed, flailing at her attackers. Her chest beat, heart trying to claw its way out, to run from the carnage. “No!”</p><p>They were pulling out her vertebrae, relinking one by one. Lana screamed. <em>The pain. . . The pain. . .</em></p><p>“Make it stop. . .” she moaned, taking a weak swing at whoever was digging into her back.</p><p>“Her amps are all blown to pieces,” someone said. “Give me the clotter. We need to seal this vein. Come on, babe, keep breathing, keep breathing.”</p><p><em>Keep breathing.</em> It was all she could do as she lay on the stretcher, face inserted through a port to connect to a breathing tube while they operated on her back in the field tent. They couldn’t move her in time, not with the massive amount of injury she’d sustained from interacting with the beacon. They cauterized her wounds, sewed everything up after replacing the amps to control the dark energy flowing rampant over her body. It was touch and go, both for the field surgeons and for Lana, the Star of Terra, the beauty of the Alliance. She wouldn’t see combat for days, months even. But the memories would fade, and she would slowly become obsessed with the story of the Turian she had heard from the dockworker.</p><p> </p><p>“Lana, my name is Will Clarke. I’m an auditor, officially, but I am also a forensic psychologist. I have been sent here to talk to you about Derek Powell, the young man you met on Eden Prime outside Colony 16. He helped you find the beacon, correct?”</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it.” Lana crouched in the corner of her bed against the wall, waiting for the door to open again so she could run. William Clarke sat down, pulling out a chair across from her bed, and began flipping open a portfolio that held a datapad and file. He pulled out photographs and handed these to the bed, dropping them, spreading these so she could see without having to move much on her part.</p><p>“Derek Powell was found murdered three days ago, just a month after we extracted you from the beacon site on Eden Prime, Colony 16’s dock port. Can you identify him among these pictures for me?”</p><p>Lana’s green eyes shot to the mutilated corpse of the middle photo among three. Clarke made a note of it on his datapad.</p><p>“Thank you, Miss Shephard.”</p><p>She stretched out her arm, fingers touching the middle photo.</p><p>“What happened to him,” she whispered.</p><p>“He had a very bad mauling by varren. Next. Lana, would you mind identifying which of these two remaining photos is a picture of your artwork? Just for recording purposes, we’d like to know if you remember what you first did the minute your surgery was over and you had access to paper and pencil. . . Which you tore out of the metrics printer and almost choked an orderly for.”</p><p>She pointed to the one on his right. There were rapid, harsh sketches of aliens with three eyes, thick dark skeletons, a rising monolith of black behind. Part of the paper had ripped from her scribbling so hard at the time. Faces of ghosts surrounded the figures, many to be indicated by the number of times she drew them in rapid succession. Or were they skulls? She couldn’t tell the difference, but they all represented one thing to her: death.</p><p>Clarke put on his glasses and held up the photograph she indicated with her wrist shaking. “Lana, could you tell me in your own words what you remember drawing here in this photo?”</p><p>“I don’t know what they are. It’s what I saw after touching the beacon. They’re not alive though. They’re synthetic.”</p><p>“Like. . . Geth?”</p><p>She nodded abruptly, pulling her arm back into herself.</p><p>Clarke took off his glasses and stood up to move to the side of the bed.</p><p>“Lana, do you remember me?”</p><p>She shook her head. He sighed. Pursing his lip, he forced a smile.</p><p>“We met a while back on shore leave. You were about to start your new command as XO on the Normandy SR1. You worked under Captain Anderson. You and I. . . We had a night out together.” He paused, letting this sink in. “I think I told you some things you shouldn’t know about. Do you know what they were?”</p><p>“Cerberus. . . Alliance entities. . . black ops Corsairs. All your jurisdiction. . . All your affairs.”</p><p>She smiled, coming back to him lucidly.</p><p>“We slept together.”</p><p>“Right. . . Lana, I have to tell you something that you’re not going to like. I need you to be very calm. Due to the course of events that resulted from Eden Prime, you are going to be removed from your office aboard the Normandy. Your accusations of Saren Arterius have been. . . Rescinded. Formally.”</p><p>“What? Even after Powell identified him?” Her eyes grew wide.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Because he’s dead, there’s no longer anyone to vouch for me.”</p><p>He agreed with her statement.</p><p>Pulling out a pen, he also removed a paper form from his coat liner and set this in front of her on the bed.</p><p>“You will need to assume a new life. There will be no record of us having ever had this meeting. As a result of our previous relations, I have been selected to enter a special program with you, but while I will keep on in my current state of affairs, you will be renounced and discharged from the Alliance of Colonized Systems.”</p><p>“What the fuck are you talking about?” Lucidity grew, and she crawled across the bed, grabbing at his clothes. “What did you just say to me—I’m discharged?” she shouted, growing more angry.</p><p>Clarke, being a big man, took her wrists and pried her grip off his lapels. He forcefully pushed them down to the bed and looked at her with steady gray eyes.</p><p>“It will be odd at first, and hard I imagine, what with all that you’ve shared with me of your hopes for a star command, but I assure you, Lana, it will get easier. We could even entertain the notion of getting you pregnant. You would have to completely conform to the belief and let everything that you know go from hereon out.”</p><p>She shook with rage.</p><p>“You’re covering up for someone. Something. You look at me? Were you here when they brought me in? I was an exploded nugget! That beacon fried my sensors and amps! I barely survived! And you’re telling me to forget all that and have a kid with you?”</p><p>Her biotics lit up her eyes.</p><p>Quick as his reflexes were trained to do, Clarke clasped a one-way energy suspendor around her neck, choking her partly with the roughness of the snap and lock. The front part of the collar, having contacted her neck, flipped through the back, locked, and engaged with a white light.</p><p>Lana felt no power, no warm energy flowing through her mind. Silence. Silence but for her thoughts.</p><p>“That is called a suspendor, Lana. It has not quite reached the market yet, but for the military, we use it wisely. In your case, it is very important to have a use at this present time. Now, as I was saying, you and I have been configured to be romantically involved while we continue the investigation separate of your interference. I know, I know. I see that look in your eyes. You like to see things through, and that is why instead of scrapping you, our dear Star of Terra, we are going to put you to use and keep you alive unlike poor Powell here,” he tapped the mutilated body in the picture.</p><p>“Is that even really Powell?” she asked, feeling the cold of the metal suspendor against her neck. “Or another ploy and coverup like mine?”</p><p>“Powell. . . Hmm. . . Interesting you ask. . . Let’s rest it at that.”</p><p> </p><p>The next day she was moved through the process of procuring all signatures for discharge and permanent replacement. Sitting through each signing, rescinding her reports, Lana stared dejectedly at the ink as each ‘d’ in her name finished her signature and was replaced by a fresh sheet and blank line. They kept her wearing the suspendor, kept her dressed in a robe, so she really did look and feel like a headcase and a patient in a mental ward. For the beacon, they charged her with incompetence. For the accusations including the name of a rogue Turian named Saren Arterius, she was charged as unethical, conduct unbecoming a model officer. She saw Anderson once, her captain, who could barely look at her, not because she looked like shit, but because he was ashamed of what was happening, and he was helpless to stop it. Though when he left, he passed her a glance through the wire reinforced window of the door that said “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Lana was raped the next day by William Clarke.</p><p>It came, expected, but not welcome. He had alluded to the fact they could “entertain the notion,” but it would be the first of many in which she would hate him, gradually grow to love him, and then be forced to accept the fact that the lie they were building to protect the investigation into Saren Arterius would be her truth.</p><p>And as a good soldier did, Lana performed her duty.</p><p>David Clarke was born on November 9th, 2184. And that was the day Lana resolved to reform.</p><p>And rebel against the Alliance and William Clarke.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Chapter 30</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A slip of a tear fell from her eye as she relayed this story to the others, silent and grim with shock at what had been done to her. The Star of Terra, traumatized, reconstructed, raped, forced to accept a lie and make it seem true, compromised by having child with the enemy who was sent to subdue her, take her story, deny it while investigating it in their own wrapped and sealed tight world of darkness and infamy, and force Lana into making the biggest decision of her life, to turn away from the only innocence she had brought into the world in order to fight the odds and make it brighter.</p><p>She sighed, twisting the hem of her shirt in a finger and letting go.</p><p>“That’s it. That’s what led me to here where we are, and why Will wants me dead. He must know something about you guys,” she looked between Koshisigre and Kolyat, whose faces were as still as stone, “because I can’t make the connection why he would compromise you, Koshi, through using your son to get me. But either way, I think you, Kolyat, are in danger regardless of whether you die in the present future or the later.”</p><p>She turned, hesitated, and looked at Joker. He barely met her eyes.</p><p>“You knew Will. You know what he’s like.”</p><p>Joker nodded, then slowly murmured, “Now I know why he had so many chicks in his bed. He probably. . . Never mind. It just sounds shitty. . . For both of you.”</p><p>She hunched her shoulders in a shrug.</p><p>“Did you ever love him?”</p><p>“I deceived myself into believing I did. There was no other way to survive, Joker. . . And if you’re wondering if he ever loved me. . . I think he did for a while. Hard not to when you’re forced into a non-reality with an attractive person you’re destined to make a child with.”</p><p>Joker looked at her then. Lana wiped her eyes and pushed back the hair from her face.</p><p>“I burned my Star of Terra when I found this guy,” she pointed at Garrus. “His attempt on my life,” she paused, looking at Koshisigre, “and his arrival. . . That was the sign I needed.” Her jaw flexed as she mulled this over, looking away from Koshisigre and Garrus.</p><p>Koshisigre looked at her shoulders, suddenly small and fragile. He wanted to hold her, thinking nothing else mattered. Her hair swept to the right and to the left as she shook her head. Things had become conspicuously darker.</p><p>Lana closed her eyes, as if in pain.</p><p>“I guarantee you, everything we do from here on out, will be watched and tracked unless we are all very careful to erase whatever prints we leave behind. The fact that you are all here with me, regardless of whether you agree to be or not, makes you a liability to the Alliance, and to William. For some reason, they want Saren as much as I, but the methods they have used to go about doing so have been unprecedented, at least in Human history as far as I know. Maybe there are others like me. . .”</p><p>“Is David in danger?” Koshisigre asked.</p><p>“No, but maybe. I highly doubt it. Regardless, he’s safer where he is, away from me, because I’m not going to let my baby know I went down without a fight.”</p><p>She raised her chin, knowing they were watching her every motion. Her tears ran freely then. Straight and softly falling down her cheeks from her eyes.</p><p>“So they used you,” Kolyat said, looking at her with newfound sadness. Maybe respect.</p><p>The small scar on her chin worked as she replied.</p><p>“And now I’m using them.”</p><p> </p><p>Lana left the cabin area and went through the Villetta to find her and Tali’s loft. The skin on her right arm and leg felt tighter, rubbing against her pants or feeling the cold air on the arm.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Lana, Clarke said, I know these circumstances are non-ideal, but I want you to know, I’m going to try to love you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He lay in bed beside her, looking at her stone cold face as she stared up into the ceiling, trying to burrow through it with her eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You think you can break me to fit what you want, she murmured, quiet. She felt him move into position over her again, violating her, taking what he couldn’t. What she wouldn’t let them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Why do we have to do this? she asked after he was done, lying on his stomach and facing away from her on his pillow. Why is it necessary?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Because it’s our service, our duty to obey. They want to find Saren, but we can’t have them thinking that he’s being looked for, Lana. This is bigger than you or me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So big we have to bring into existence a child?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He turned on the pillow, facing her. She turned finally to look at him. He had a hardness in his eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Whatever the cost, Lana. They’ll have plans for David, too.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We’re naming him already? I haven’t even conceived.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She didn’t think she had, at least.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You will, Lana. I’ve been taking modified therapies for the sperm. We won’t disappoint the Alliance.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What if I don’t let it happen?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She cried out, the pain in her side from his hand unexpected and intense.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I hate to disappoint you, Lana, but if you try to abort the mission, then we have less humane methods of making this work.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He let go of her skin. A sorry look came to his eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’m resolved to go through with this, Lana. This will promote me, and all I have to do is pretend with you. You must do the same. You said you were a soldier once, through and through. Now Humanity has come to call, and you will answer.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Do you remember when I asked you if you wanted to serve again, Lana?” Koshisigre found her in the loft, gazing at the picture of her and David in her hands. Tears were pooling in the corner from how it tilted in her fingers.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Do you want me to take you to the Illusive Man now?”</p><p>“Is he Alliance? Council?”</p><p>“Neither. He fights both.”</p><p>
  <em>Good.</em>
</p><p>“I’ll go where I can do the most damage.”</p><p>“Then we need to finish up tying loose ends here, Lana, first.”</p><p>“Tell me, Koshi. . . Tell me your name. I’m tired of lying. . . I’m tired of lies.”</p><p>He stood before her, looking down at her bent head. The hair shifted to the side as she shook the tresses from her face and blinked up at him with glassy, wet eyes of shimmering green.</p><p>His jaw twitched.</p><p>Koshisigre knelt down, taking her hand from the picture frame, which he removed to beside her on the bed. He rubbed his thumbs up and down her arms, his right hand touching the scar with long, fluid strokes.</p><p>“You learn to hide things like names for the protection of your young,” he murmured, looking steady on at her. “I don’t give my name out, for the obvious reason down below.”</p><p>“Just tell me, Koshi,” she said, gritting her teeth at him, squeezing his thumbs which had slid into her palms.</p><p>“I am curious to know,” he replied, “if you will want to know me once you find out who I am. Or if because you only want to move on faster from your pain these past three years since Eden Prime.”</p><p>“Didn’t you realize, Koshisigre, that I only started talking to you outside the Magistrate’s because you were just another pretty face?” She forced a smile.</p><p>Koshisigre smiled as well at her show of humor. He didn’t feel it was natural, what with all she had told them down in the lower cabin. She was attempting to put on a show of control over the inner emotion building up inside her for all that time she was a prisoner, tormented and abused in the worst possible way that not only compromised her, but created a life on which hinged her love.</p><p>“Did you ever fight him?” he asked.</p><p>He needed to know.</p><p>“At first,” she replied, letting him squeeze her hands as though he were pressing the bad blood away from her fingertips, blood made by lies and force and pain. Lana sniffed, cuffing a trickle from her nose. “I made my protests known. He made his.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Lana. . . I’m sorry for what has happened to you. For what you have been put through. David. . .”</p><p>“He’s not a sin, Koshi,” she said, adamant. Her eyes glistened, but they were rock hard in this utterance. “He’s not at fault. And I didn’t leave him with Will because of what happened to me. He simply cannot come where I am going.”</p><p>“And where are you going, Lana?” he asked, unwavering in his gaze into those eyes full of pain and hate and love.</p><p>“I may have to walk into Hell and back, Koshi. I hope you know. . . Knew that. . . Before coming up here.” She swallowed.</p><p>He offered his hand to her face, brushing back tears and coasting his nails over her hair’s framing.</p><p>“I knew.”</p><p>He leaned forward and kissed her, slowly, gentle. Lana’s mouth opened to him, letting her tongue touch against his, the spice of millions of cells mingling venom and saliva into a hallucinogenic promise. Koshisigre bent her back against the bed, until her knees unfolded beneath her, and he covered her with warmth. They kept their hands above their clothes, testing tentatively, growing surer, until Koshisigre lifted her T shirt over her head and she pulled his vest off his arms and back.</p><p>He touched her neck, let her sigh into the kiss. Her hand fell on his middle, and slid upwards over the muscles of his abs and pecs, around his neck, to his back, taking him deeper.</p><p>“My name is Thane,” he murmured, pulling away briefly to look at her eyes and check her reaction to his venom. “Thane Krios, and I am from Rakhana.”</p><p>“My name is pain, Thane Krios from Rakhana. Former soldier, pretender, liar. . .”</p><p>“I know who and what you are better than the day I first laid eyes on you, Lana Shephard. I will follow you despite your choice to go where darkness consumes. I have come to respect and admire you, despite your pain and your sacrifice. And I have come for you, darling. I will fight for you, and be the arm that protects you, and those you love, from any and all who come in between.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Chapter 31</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her eyes dropped to his chest, then danced up to his lips. Soft little breaths were coming from her mouth. Thane’s muscles in his neck flexed as he moved, lowering his head down to kiss her again, stroking her tongue with his and finger walking his hand down from her breasts. Thrills raced to her loins, Lana tightening at his ticklish touch. She had the desire to curl up and fight him off, he was tickling her so much.</p><p>“Thane,” she mused over the name on her lips. It, too, tickled her to say it.</p><p>“What,” he barely breathed, covering her mouth with another slow kiss, the kind that stopped just at the top before deciding to deepen. He gripped her thigh and spread the leg, permitting his hand to explore.</p><p>“I don’t think we should start this right now. . . Koshi?”</p><p>“Hmm?” he hummed, moving down her thigh to grip her knee with massaging pressure. He mouthed the side of her throat, working up towards her ear.</p><p>“Thane,” she hissed at his hot caress with his tongue.</p><p>Garrus called up the ladder rudely, “Hey, you two, stop fucking around up there! Little boy blue needs to go home or you need to tell him to sit his ass down. Are you listening to me? . . . Don’t make me come up there and separate you two!”</p><p>“Garrus,” Thane growled, low enough for only him and Lana to hear.</p><p>Lana started laughing.</p><p>Thane bit her ear to tease her some more.</p><p>“Okay, okay,” she panted, pushing him off and squirming away.</p><p>“We do need to attend to my son’s predicament,” he admitted, though reluctant to let her rise up and dress. He fondled her stomach and slid his palm up to her ribs, cupping her breast in a want squeeze.</p><p>Lana nearly went back to the lean, fit, muscular strength, the amorous deep eyes, his waiting tongue and lips.</p><p>Looking up at her, he wanted so much more than what they had gotten away with.</p><p>Lana got dressed, pulling on her shirt to hide her breasts and skin. Thane’s fingers fell to the scar on her arm.</p><p>“I want to protect you. . . More than ever,” he said lustfully.</p><p>He stood, pulling up with his vest and looking down at her as he moved his arms into each hole. Leaving the vest to hang open, he pulled her against his mouth and poked his tongue against hers. They stood still for a moment longer, indulging in this sudden hunger for the other and his or her taste.</p><p>“Fuck,” Lana said, pulling away again. She pushed him off.</p><p>Thane smiled, giving her a look of understanding.</p><p>“We really shouldn’t. . . At least not now.”</p><p>They returned to the ladder and looked down to see if they could tell whether Garrus was there or someone else.</p><p>Lana went down the ladder first, swinging her leg so that her heel connected as before and she slid down with one hand over the other.</p><p>At the bottom, she moved away to let Thane join them back in the hall between the cockpit and the crew quarters.</p><p>“Hey, you,” Tali said, opening her arms to welcome her fellow “Quarian” into a collegial embrace. Lana accepted the offer and let herself be comforted in front of the others. She felt Thane’s hand on the small of her back temporarily, and then it was lifted away.</p><p>“So, Kolyat,” he spoke to his boy who had been freed by Garrus and now sat in the somewhat lobby of the Villetta, for this area was where people could board or disembark the Villetta. “We have a problem with Lana’s letting you remain. That being, you will not fight while you are a member of this ship.”</p><p>“Dad, seriously, I need to go back. Sob story aside,” he looked at Lana, who was giving him a troubling expression, one of wrath, “I have a job with C-Sec and a decent social life on the Citadel. We need to handle Will, yes, but I don’t know what I can do besides give him her,” he gestured to Lana.</p><p>He could smell his father on her as she walked by, heading down the ramp from the cockpit and lobby to the galley. Something struck him as envy needled his urge. <em>Damn</em>, he thought, watching her curve her way down to the bottom with Tali not far to the side. <em>If I could hit that</em>. . . He very nearly trilled.</p><p>Garrus slapped him in the back of the head and cast Thane a look.</p><p>“If you don’t do it, I will. This kid’s in heat and it’s a small ship. . . I don’t need to be smelling him rut every time a female walks by,” Garrus put defensively after receiving Thane’s visual rebuke by expression.</p><p>“Kolyat, you really can’t expect to be able to stay here and enjoy those things after having been threatened with what Will may surely promise.” A vision of Lana arching her neck as he played with her locks and kissed her breasts caused Thane to sigh with whimsy, but the other two males, including Joker, only thought this was directed exasperation at Kolyat Krios, who turned and looked at his father with a weird eye.</p><p>“You can’t possibly think you can go on being called Koshisigre if I stay on.”</p><p>Garrus growled softly, not too happy with the idea the sly-minded son of the Drell was actually considering. He personally would not mind seeing Kolyat go.</p><p>“Not with you calling it out all the time,” Thane remarked, somewhat irritably at his son’s constant pushback, but he could not blame his son’s irascibility. Things were not turning out so simple since Lana had gone to the Bank of Trust. “Listen. Why don’t you stay here for a night and we can come to a plan together. I must take Lana to introduce her to a contact of mine. We will be back in an hour. . . You will be proper and behaved, Kolyat. Tali is in charge.”</p><p>“The Quarian?”</p><p>“The Quarian. . . Do you have a problem with that?” Thane asked low and dangerous, despite it being his son.</p><p>“No, sir,” Kolyat replied succinctly, recognizing when his father was giving him the alert to his emotion at present.</p><p>“Good. I will take my leave and see you in a bit. Perhaps an hour to reflect will help everyone to brainstorm.” He called to Lana, addressing her as “Commander” in front of his son.</p><p>Lana looked up the ramp with Tali at the four waiting pairs of eyes.</p><p>“What do you think, Tali?”</p><p>“I think it is a bad situation, Shephard. You need to find something that will throw off your ex, but your son. . . It is just very complicated.”</p><p>“Maybe I should just talk to a friend or two.”</p><p>“Maybe you should start by talking to Clarke.” Tali looked at Lana square on. “Give him something in exchange for your life. He doesn’t want you or Kolyat. He wants to hide the truth. Barter with him, Lana. So we can get out of here. No fooling aside, I want to go back to my flotilla and give my father my pilgrimage gift.”</p><p>“Which you still haven’t let me see, Tali.”</p><p>The girls sat down at the table, despite Thane’s suggestion they attend to the ID matters, but when Lana told him they were trying to come up with an idea to barter for her and their lives with William Clarke, he nodded as he understood. Preferring to have a plan rather than worry with nothing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0032"><h2>32. Chapter 32</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Leaving David with Will may have been the only smart thing she had done, Lana thought to herself, but she did not realize that Thane would put into work another idea. He was uncomfortable with what he had learned. No amount of fatherly love from the William Clarke he had discovered through Lana’s admission would be enough for him to feel at ease with letting the child remain with the father, who obviously was not with the child if he was on the Citadel. Maybe David was nearby. He had resources.</p><p>Thane went into the cockpit while Joker was not around and began to issue a message on his omnitool.</p><p>
  <em>Feron,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Please respond when you have received this message. I need a favor for a friend. Go to the coordinates I will ping you in a separate message. Find a small male Human child with light hair and green eyes. Remove with care. And deliver to home. Separate instructions shall be provided upon retrieval. Thank you, Sered Hea. Thane.</em>
</p><p>He hit SEND and delivered the message, created a new file and followed up. He did not think that Lana would mind, but he knew that Will would be angered. Giving him no second thought, Thane returned to the lobby of the Villetta and looked at his son, who had now stood and was checking out the ship while Garrus and Joker talked.</p><p>“This ship has been to the docks before,” Kolyat observed, running his hand over the pipes and looking at his father. “I’m actually a bit surprised it is not more luxurious. Will tends to throw around a lot of money.”</p><p>He reached into his pocket and pulled out the chit card. Thane and Kolyat looked at it, considering.</p><p>“There is over forty grand on here,” Kolyat said aloud, perking Garrus and Joker’s ears.</p><p>They came over and took the chit from his fingers.</p><p>“We could add it to the fund for desperate Humans named Lana Shephard,” Garrus replied, holding it up. He studied the silver tab. “Huh, would you look at that.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“There is a talon mark on here,” Garrus said to Thane, “and that means it’s Turian in origin.” He glanced at Kolyat, whose red tebris shivered as the women passed by to head for the cockpit. “Would you knock it off? Anyway,” Garrus said, refocusing their attention, “I’d wager this is money coming from either the Hierarchy or the Council.”</p><p>“Sparatus? You think?”</p><p>“Maybe. I don’t know much about Will besides what I’ve read and seen. . . Now heard,” he added skeptically, looking off after Lana and Tali who were both listening intently to Tali’s omnitool. “I don’t know if I buy all that she’s said, but it’s a pretty fucked up story if it’s true. That someone or something would go to such extreme ends to take down Saren, rogue or not. I just don’t understand why she would want to let it happen to her for so long. Would the Alliance really be able to force her or did she want Saren that bad?”</p><p>“Obviously she wants Saren,” Thane said. As for the beacon visions, he didn’t know if that was all true, but what he did know was that Will was already on his bad side for having tried to use, and threaten, his son. “What ‘they’ are or what ‘they’ intend to do with the son of William and Lana is something that troubles me.”</p><p>“It would,” Garrus chuffed, looking between him and Kolyat.</p><p>“Will never really spoke about Lana or his son, David,” Joker observed, “and he was pretty ribald about sharing his life, or at least his exploits, if you know what I’m talking about.” He elbowed Kolyat.</p><p>“We don’t,” Lana said, coming back from the cockpit with Tali and appraising her growing crew. “Look,” she said, “we’re going to do a little sleuthing. I need an ID and some tech I can pick up in the lower wards. You three, Garrus, Kolyat, Joker, stay here with Tali. Thane,” she looked at him, raising the eye brows and ridges of the Human and Aliens, “let’s go to Tarsus and figure out what I can get.”</p><p> </p><p>“You finally told her your name,” Kolyat said under his breath, sparing a glance at his father as Thane began to check his gear.</p><p>“Yes. . . She asked and it was warranted.”</p><p>“I’m glad, I guess.”</p><p>He looked up at Kolyat from the floor, tying his laces and checking to see if his knives were properly concealed in his boots.</p><p>“You don’t disapprove?”</p><p>Kolyat hesitated, then said, “I doubt holding onto Mom after all that’s been done is going to be healthy in the long run, Dad. I don’t fault you for having moved on, but I am just concerned you might be setting yourself up for some unnecessary pain. Lana is nice,” he added begrudgingly, “but if she’s just a face and a body—“</p><p>“She has those assets,” Thane replied tersely, “but she does more than that for me. I enjoy working with her and we trust each other. . . If not entirely. . . She has been betrayed by the Alliance and forced into a form of slavery for in order to attack something that she believes is real and a threat, not just from Saren, William, or the Council and Alliance. She told us about the visions from the beacon and how it affected her for days after the incident on Eden Prime.”</p><p>“Yeah. . . That’s also what worries me, Dad. She’s kind of loose goods.”</p><p>“She is far more collected, despite what trauma she has received.”</p><p>“Dad, you know I believe in you and have learned to accept your decisions, but what if she implodes? Just being with her in this ship already has us on the bad side of a very powerful man. . . And if he knows you intend to bang her—“</p><p>“Kolyat. Enough.”</p><p>Thane gave his son a cross look.</p><p>“I will handle my affairs wisely.”</p><p>“You sure?” Kolyat flattened his voice. “You normally don’t get so involved with your assignments. Not at least from what you’ve told me. Are you sure you’re not violating a policy or something with whatever or whoever you were contacted by to help with finding her?”</p><p>Thane had to admit, he was.</p><p>His own.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0033"><h2>33. Chapter 33</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana descended down the lift, re-garbed in her Quarian getup, and set to walking ahead of Thane. Not wanting to appear an item together, she moved in coordination with a com at her ear and Thane following from whatever shadows and distance he found and permitted her to be from his immediate person.</p><p>“You think that they will all get along?” she asked through her ear piece after Thane informed her to walk to the next arm of the station, no more than twenty meters away from her position to the ward arm’s connector. The smell of putrid vats was behind her as she broke the fifteen meter mark from the ship they had left behind</p><p>“I think we will find out that matter when we return, but Kolyat and Garrus should be alright without your presence.”</p><p>“You noticed a little tension there, too, huh.”</p><p>“Kolyat is attracted to you, and Garrus is finding himself protective, which amuses me very much.”</p><p>“From hitman to mother,” Lana chuckled through her visor.</p><p>Thane joined in and shared.</p><p>“So, out of respect for your son and your hidden identity, I’m going to call you Koshi in front of new company. You let me know if you’d prefer I not, okay?”</p><p>“I agree that would be wise. . . However,” he added with a slight rise in his pulse, “I do like the way you say my real name when I’m kissing your neck and ear. It is quite rousing.”</p><p>The thought of his tongue grazing her ear again made Lana flush in her skin and suit. “You know, you do need to keep a focus. . . Thane,” she said teasingly.</p><p>She heard a flutter of a purr on the other line and grinned.</p><p>“Keep that up, Lana, and I will divest you of that suit and show you what else I can make you say to me under my touch.”</p><p>“Keep talking dirty. I got about ten more paces before I reach the connector.”</p><p>He swung down from the next rampway leading into the higher levels of ward B and stalked towards her, but didn’t connect, only passing nonchalantly to the walkway over the bridge spanning the arms. He was dressed in civilian gear that he had managed to find on the fly as he escorted her from the distance.</p><p>“Do you like raspberries?”</p><p>“I’m not sure what they are.”</p><p>“If you see a Human vending station for market groceries, let me know and I’ll get you acquainted.”</p><p>He stepped off the end of the bridge span and disappeared into the walls, which were open and threaded as was the manner of architecture so close to the control hub of the Citadel. Lana watched his blue shirt and khaki pants slip easily in with the other citizens of the Citadel walking to and from jobs and whatever else constituted as normal here in space with countless Aliens moving and mingling among shops, offices, the gardens and reservoirs. The Citadel was quite odd to her, reminding Lana of the first Elysium, not the battle of the Blitz, but when Humanity had experimented with a luxury space habitat for the rich and famous. It had been picturesque with simulated sky and real gardens, full of pools and manmade lakes.</p><p>She took a stroll down some stairs before Thane’s voice cut in.</p><p>“Lana, watch to your left. There are some unpleasant Krogan who have identified you as a Quarian. Move ten paces right and you will be less of a target for their dissentiments.”</p><p>“Quarians really have gotten a bad rep lately, huh,” she said as she fulfilled his request.</p><p>“I think they have always been given hostility for what happened with the Geth, but lately, since Eden Prime, and as Joker shared, the insensitivity has increased.”</p><p>Lana kept her visor forward, but saw the Krogan out the corner of her mask. There were three, all a purplish hue on their humps as though they were possibly from the same clutch.</p><p>“Thanks for the sharp attention. I was worried you would be too distracted.”</p><p>“I am,” he replied, grinning as he glanced back at her from a catwalk like pathway higher above the ave she was walking through. “You know,” he allowed, taking a drink of her suit, “I think a few Quarians would be very offended by what you look like in that made up enviro suit.”</p><p>She almost caught a trip at his remark and kept up fluidly with the pace she had recovered by.</p><p>“Offended?”</p><p>“You make Quarians look. . . A little dirty, but in a highly scandalous and. . . Pleasure inducing way.”</p><p>“Jeez. . . So you’re basically telling me I look like a walking B&amp;M dream. I know, I’ve played with the idea, but I didn’t think. . .”</p><p>“It, too, is very rousing to me. . . And distracting, as I have mentioned.”</p><p>Lana laughed, her voice tinny through the activated amplifier that Tali had shown her how to use. That was why Kolyat had been able to hear her voice and recognize it, since she had not turned on the mask’s headgear.</p><p>The turn up ahead was one way, so Lana kept following the channel being cut into the walls. Less men and women were traveling through this part of the facility and Lana tried not to look around for Thane. But she could hear him purling at her through his speaker piece.</p><p>“Thane, how much farther?” she asked.</p><p>“Not much more. We are on Ward Arm C. Tzadera Ward will be down half a mile closer to the edge of the middle of the station’s arm, but towards the end of that and the start of the bottom third. Tired?”</p><p>“Just like to keep things moving. I want to get this ID and get out. Whatever I need to do here has to be quick. Is your friend going to cause me any inconvenience?”</p><p>“No. He is a no questions asked sort of fellow. I have worked with him many times. A fellow Drell. He might ask you for your real name, however, since he does like Quarians.”</p><p>“How convenient. So do I get to presume that I will get bonus perks for wearing this getup? Maybe I should slip out a little wrist and ankle for him to ogle. Save us some credits.”</p><p>Thane chuckled into her com, his voice fluid yet raspy. “I think I prefer you save your skin for me later,” he growled.</p><p>Their flirting continued all the way to Tzadera Ward, Lana teasing back as he teased her. She had come to learn how to enjoy her relationship, forced and subtly convenient as it was, with William, but the fact was that Will always had an ulterior motive in the back of her head, so she could never totally relax with her fellow soldier and servant to the Alliance’s Project Foundation program. She would have to really play her part as subservient housewife sometimes when Will became frustrated with their whole setup. As much as he was gung ho about the lie they were creating for the Alliance’s goal, Will could never truly relax around her either. Having a child between them was somewhat of a relief, because the fact of creation between two individuals was, well, breathtakingly mind altering. It was then that they had made some adjustments to accommodate their raising a child together, as the books they had been given in preparation alluded to the fact a healthy child was a child among a family of love and laughter. It had been easy at first, though Lana was underhandedly working to make her way out. Conflicted at best, determined at worst, David needed a future, and she could not promise him one if she did not find out what Saren was up to. He and she were inextricably tied to those reapers she saw furrowing the ground with blood in her visions from the beacon. That could not be what her son had to look forward to. Leaving him to Will was the best she could do to secure him some safety while she went on her mission. The divorce was a bit of a surprise, because why, if she and Will were bound at the bottom of Project Foundation, would they suddenly separate her from Will and David?</p><p><em>Maybe it was planned from the beginning</em>, she thought, <em>and I was so obviously expendable once I’d. . .</em></p><p>She did stop.</p><p>
  <em>Oh my God.</em>
</p><p>“David.”</p><p>“What is it, Lana?” Thane asked through her com, alert to her sudden change of motion and lack thereof.</p><p>“David. . . They want David. They want to kill me because they have David. A child does not need his mother after two. The milk, the feeding, the touch, the loving. . . That can all be provided by alternate means. The touch of the mother, the smell of her hair and her milk. . . That is something a child is born knowing. It gives them security, trust, comfort, confidence. . . That’s why he divorced me. . . And took David. This has all been planned. . .”</p><p>“Lana?” Thane grew worried. He decided to tell her. “I have already made arrangements to identify David’s holding location and return him to you, or at least, to some place safer than Will’s care.”</p><p>“What?” This made things complicated. “You did what? Without consulting me? I mean, granted I’ve just had this revelation. . . God, I really am dumb!” She paced back and forth, worrying at her head gear, feeling suddenly nauseous and uncertain. “How could you. . . Why didn’t you. . . Oh, Thane! Why didn’t you at least ask me first? This is my son and my life and his!”</p><p>“I was worried and you were distracted. I said I would protect you and those you loved. . . Love.”</p><p>“I didn’t take it literally!”</p><p>Hurt, he frowned. “Lana, you want your son, don’t you? I can have him waiting for you at a safe location.”</p><p>“Can you be so certain?” she hissed. “I hardly know you! Granted. . . God <em>damn</em> it!”</p><p>She sat down on a made up bench of a curb or corner to the avenue lane structure. She held her visor and slipped it off with a hiss. “Fuck. . .” She needed to breathe, and tears were threatening, plus the heat of her skin and breath was fogging the visor.</p><p>“Lana, please put your mask back on,” she heard through the tinny speaker of the earpiece in the hood. She complied, wiping out the fog with her fingers covered in cloth skin weave. The wires and vectors for magnetic attraction to greaves that could be added on to complete the Alliance armor shimmered in the artificial lamplight provided overhead in the corridor. Lana paused and considered the enmeshed fabric of infrastructure running through the uniform.</p><p>“Thane, we are clearly going to have to discuss borders,” she said, fixing her hair back in her collar and pulling the hood back over to reattach to her mask.</p><p>“I can assure you, I have contacted a very good friend of mine. He will take care of David for you until you and he may be reunited.”</p><p>She smiled at the thought, beside herself in the notion that what she hadn’t wanted to happen, taking David with her, was going to despite her opportunity to keep him in Will’s care.</p><p>“If your ex-husband was so willing to destroy you, Lana, I fear to think what he will do to your child.”</p><p>“I guess I owe you a kiss when and if I see David again.”</p><p>“You owe me nothing. This is my word to you. I will protect you and those that you love.”</p><p>“Same goes for you, Thane. I hope I’m not premature in saying that, but—“</p><p>“What you did last night to get Kolyat to the Villetta, relatively unharmed save for a black eye injury. . . I think it doesn’t matter right now. We are taking care of each other.”</p><p>“Right, okay. I don’t know why I trust you, but I take your word for it.” She breathed out, crackling the com. Rising, she resumed her faster pace now. “Let’s go get these IDs.”</p><p>The rest of the walk was conducted mostly in silence. Thane was slightly abashed for having taken a personal risk for her and received chastisement in some form, but he was content that his decision had been made with good intentions, and if left to chance, something of no good would come to David. Lana thought about why a Drell would go out on a limb for her at all, and if he was true and honest, sincere in his word, and successful in obtaining David safely, securely, without causing her son any trauma, then she could focus and be clearheaded as well as clear conscienced. She only hoped that what they were doing was right.</p><p>But she sorely looked forward to seeing her son again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0034"><h2>34. Chapter 34</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Drell at the counter was silent and black. He had a red flare of tebris through his neck and jaw like Thane. His eyes were jet black, and beyond, she could barely detect a silver cut of iris as the orbs flicked back and forth from Thane to Lana.</p><p>“Is this the one?” he asked with a sibilance that was lost on Thane.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“I will need to see her face.”</p><p>Lana nodded and began to remove her mask. The Drell with the midnight black scales turned his face to her and watched. A trill went up when he saw the face mask removed to reveal the Human woman behind it.</p><p>“Forty thousand.”</p><p>“Credits?” Lana barked in surprise.</p><p>Thane waved his credit chit over the Drell’s keycard laying out on the counter. The transfer flashed and the Drell pocketed it with his black hands.</p><p>Lana thought it was odd that the amount was equivalent to what she had learned Will had bribed Kolyat with on the credit chit he had received.</p><p>“The face of a war vet such as she who stands before me in a tightly fabricated Quarian assemblage with Alliance equipment, mask and hood silks excluded, will cost a fair credit to hide. Tell me, Lana Shephard,” the Drell inquired, holding her gloved hand up for scrutiny of the metal fibers conducted through the skin weave, “do you prefer red hair, blond, or black? I can also change your species’s identity for an additional ten thousand credits.”</p><p>“What are you. . . Some type of artist?”</p><p>The Drell smiled, and his teeth were white and sharp.</p><p>“I am a master of technologies for the cosmetic arts. Much of what I use is virtual, and comes with a full complement of make-believe materials that will further supplement the disguise and story I create for. . . One such as you.” He gave her hand back and reduced his smile until the teeth hid behind curved black plated scale. Lana knew how soft the lips were of the Drell species despite this, thanks to her experience kissing Thane.</p><p>The Drell, Dae, as Thane had introduced him and nothing more, turned to settle his black eyes on the other.</p><p>“She will need a less provocative outfit. It can connect with the collar I—“</p><p>“I’m not wearing a collar,” she snapped.</p><p>Thane and Dae both looked at her, almost registering surprise on their faces.</p><p>Lana was standoffish. She shook her face back and forth beneath the silk folds.</p><p>“I am not wearing a collar. Will put me in a collar. . . Koshi. When he did what he did. I’m not wearing a collar.”</p><p><em>The suspendor,</em> he realized. Made sense. She associated it with her trauma from when she was first discharged, treated, and raped.</p><p>“Lana,” he began to explain, “you need to realize that what Dae is offering to make for you is in no way related to the suspendor that Will used on you to block your biotics.”</p><p>“I don’t want it. There has to be another way.” She looked near tears.</p><p>“You sad thing,” Dae murmured. He took her wrist and held her fingers in his other hand, looking into her troubled face. “I know what the suspendors are used for these days. Yes, they have their benefit in the medical world, but they are also used to hurt or at least render the powerful to <em>be</em> hurt by others who’d abuse them.” He caressed her hand. “The collar is a virtual cuff. Once you place it around your arm and your neck, for there are two pieces, one by which to easily turn on and off the contraption, it will do nothing to bring you harm. . . But it may provide you with the opportunity to walk among those you wish to offer harm to,” he said slyly.</p><p>Lana raised her eyebrow, cocking her chin. Dae touched the scar on the small tip of it with his black digit.</p><p>“You will have only to use it to your advantage, not your risk.”</p><p>She looked at Thane, removing her eyes from the silver discs hinting out from pools of darkness.</p><p>“What do you think, Lana?” he asked her.</p><p>“Alright. . . Let’s try it,” she exhaled wearily. “But I don’t like collars.”</p><p>“That is evident,” Dae observed with a sibilant hiss.</p><p>He let go of her arm and went to the back of his store, the Tarsus Nine, disappearing through a set of steel frames. Lana breathed slow in, slow out. Thane moved as close as he dared without touching her or showing their intimate nature towards one and other.</p><p>“I forgot. . . I’m sorry.”</p><p>“A Drell? Forgetting?” she teased suddenly, glancing at him sideways as she considered the wares in the glass counter, shelved beneath their palms.</p><p>Thane smiled and shrugged his shoulder nearest her.</p><p>“A Drell has perfect memory, but he does not think of all memories at once.”</p><p>“It has to be voluntary?”</p><p>He nodded, looking at her profile. Her lips. The soft corner of her skin by her mouth.</p><p>“It has to be voluntary, such as when committing one to memory.”</p><p>“You can’t just blink and voilà?”</p><p>“The Drell must immerse himself contractually by touch, sight, smell. . .”</p><p>“Are you memorizing me right now, Mr. Nupura?” she countered.</p><p>“Since the moment I laid eyes on you. . . Miss Alana.”</p><p>Dae stood between the door frames, observing the relationship and sighing.</p><p>“Love. . . It is so sweet on such two separate skins.”</p><p>Thane’s tebris blushed while Lana’s smile grew wider.</p><p>“Alana,” Dae went on, motioning through the doors, “come this way, please. We need to get you scanned.”</p><p>Looking quizzically at Thane, she stepped around the corner and followed her new guide into the back. Thane hesitated, at first, then hopped over the counter and followed them in as the doors closed.</p><p>“Please stand in the circle over there on the floor. You will need to unclothe. We will only have to go so far as the Human underclothes, so please, if you will.”</p><p>Unshy about disrobing, Lana removed the slipped ties at the bottom of her feet and undid these in order, unwinding the silks in a hasty dance up to the top of her chest and beneath the mask. She removed the head of her costume and began to unzip the skin weave, revealing her skin, bra, and underwear. While she did all this, Dae was already behind a display registering pixelized coding over various moving parts of her body and documenting these into a program. Thane watched, covered the lower half of his face with his hand, elbow tucked into the other arm across his chest. He was enjoying Lana flashing him a wink as she dropped the remaining garb from her fingers, then scooped these up and tossed these to him. He caught it in both hands, revealing his smile.</p><p>“Enough you two,” Dae admonished them with a hiss. “Alana needs to stand still for the next scans, and then I will have mapped her face. It will migrate to the new imaging, which I will adjust for a new visual that Alana can apply with the collar and cuff.”</p><p>He had her turn for a full front and back scan, and then instructed her to redress.</p><p>“The scars on your leg and arm can be modified cosmetically, if you like.”</p><p>Lana shook her head. “Scars stay.” She looked to Thane. “They’re <em>my</em> memories.”</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>“Very well then,” Dae said, somewhat disappointed. Whether he would earn a few thousand credits more or not being the reason for his lack of enthusiasm, Lana could only guess. She began to redress in the suit.</p><p>“No, no,” Dae stopped her and pointed over at a wardrobe to her left. “As wondrously seductive you look in silk and combat gear, I suggest you and. . . Mr. Nupura. . . Go over there and wait for me. Anything will suit you, my dear. But try to keep it practical.”</p><p>She joined Thane at the wardrobe, large glass doors swinging apart. They walked in together and looked up at the hanging outfits and uniforms.</p><p>“Wow,” Lana gasped. She went over to an N7 armor suit and held up the legs, fitted with their greaves and braces. “Is this real? This feels like—“</p><p>“It is an original,” Dae informed her, stepping in with a ring and a much larger one. He held these out to her. “Put these on. The large one clasps like wrist cuffs through the front around your neck. To remove it, you need only tap it twice. It will not lock you in, so do not fear it as though it might imprison you.”</p><p>He handed it to her, motioning for Lana to put it on herself. Gingerly, she held the smooth plastic collar and pushed it against her throat. The bar depressed inwards, slid completely through the next bar, and rotated the loose arm around her neck. It snapped in to lock. To test it, she tapped her fingers on the rim in front twice. It hissed with a slight sigh and fell free, Lana catching it quickly with her arm. She looked up at Dae, who smiled, pleased with her surprise.</p><p>“Not a trap, my dear.”</p><p>Lana replaced the cuff around her neck, and held up the smaller ring.</p><p>“Attach that to your wrist and slide it into the groove of your omnitool. It will activate off the battery in the cuff on your device.”</p><p>She did so, turning her hand through the plastic singular cuff and working it into the sub port of the omnitool on her arm. She turned it in until it clicked in place, as though it belonged a part of her omni cuff. Lana held it up and admired the black material.</p><p>“What’s it made of?”</p><p>“Proprietary goods.”</p><p>She snorted. <em>That’s a way of saying mind your own business.</em></p><p>Thane pulled out a long black vest meant for a woman to wear. Dae hissed at him. “No, we are not dressing her in commando assassin wear. She is not going to blend in at all. Take this,” he offered her a red and white striped suit instead with a change of blue pants. “The Asari have set the standard for female issued robe. You will need to stand out in order to stand in. Dress in this, and turn on the cuff. It will activate the program provided by the collar. Then face the mirrors and we will go from there.”</p><p>“This is horridly ugly,” Lana chafed, looking disapprovingly at the color arrangement. “I look like a flag that ate an Asari.”</p><p>“I didn’t say I agreed with their taste, but it doesn’t matter. The outfit has cells that reflect any wearer around them, so. . . Observe.”</p><p>He held up her arm, selected the cuff on her wrist and swiped his black thumb over the piece. A hum was heard that disappeared and Lana looked suddenly into the mirror.</p><p>The outfit had turned green and black, reflecting those colors most obviously near.</p><p>“Take this,” he said, swiping his thumb twice over the cuff, “and rotate it until the design fits what you prefer or have a need for.”</p><p>The colors adjusted, moving into different patterns and selections among the articles’ sewed on parts and patches. Dae moved his thumb slowly over the cuff now and adjusted the colors into a muted green, the red, blue, and white completely gone.</p><p>While Lana was watching the uniform change in mesmerizing miracles, Thane was watching the face that had formed visually over her own in startling realism. He couldn’t tell if he was hallucinating off of his own venom, but instead of seeing Lana observing her change of clothing from the neck down, he was seeing a red haired and sleek faced Human admiring her outfit with tantalizing eyes and lips. He shook his head, blinking.</p><p>“Alana. . . Look at your face and hair. Do you see yourself?”</p><p>She did, and she did not see what Thane saw.</p><p>Dae chuckled and stepped back to join him, admiring his work.</p><p>“Do you prefer red, fair, or dark, Mr. Nupura?”</p><p><em>Dark</em>, he thought, wishing to see Lana again. The red haired woman was desirable, but foreign and too perfect for him. He could tell it was a mirage, but only because he wanted to see Lana, not something fake and made up.</p><p>“What would the benefit be?” he asked, dumbly.</p><p>“Red heads attract a lot of attention, but not as much as the fair. Still, the red hair stands out, and the brunette blends in. Black is also rare and equally pretty. But I would suggest something suitable to what she intends to do. I have given you options. . . Alana, come here.”</p><p>She came over to him, wearing the suit that looked far more comfortable, if rather elegant. It was a forest green she had settled on, moving her finger over the wrist cuff and becoming familiar with its use. She had also pulled out a pair of heels, navy blue, from a compartment beneath the hanging clothes. Immediately, the inner collar of her suit jacket reflected the same dark blue, which she adjusted through the cuff to make more bright. The heels changed color as well. Lana pushed back her hair and strode over to the Drell.</p><p>“Alana, you cannot see what we see, but if you activate the neck cuff, it will transfer an image to your visual field and give you a clue as to what we are being provided by the technology imaging you to the rest of the world.” He tapped her neck collar once on the right and Lana stared in shock at the face staring back at her through a flipping in the eyes’ optical connection.</p><p>“Is this really in my head? Do I really look like that to you?”</p><p>She stared at the red head frowning back. She was porcelain, flawless, strange and foreign.</p><p>“To everyone but yourself, they will see the face preprogrammed.”</p><p><em>Fascinating</em>, she thought. “Can I alter it to reflect someone less conspicuous, or maybe another species even?”</p><p>“Wouldn’t you?” Dae said with a hint of approval. He swiped his finger on the collar left, and Lana saw the retinal relay change the woman into a Drell with a flowing gold crest and green tinted eyes. She noticed Thane’s tebris ripple with a hard swallow and gave him a look as to ask why he seemed so agitated.</p><p>Thane turned to Dae and demanded he take the program’s drellahna out.</p><p>“It can be altered, too, Mr. Nupura,” Dae replied, brushing his coat with a flick of his hand.</p><p>Lana still looked at Thane as if he’d gone mad. Thane stormed out of the wardrobe area.</p><p>“What just happened? Why is he wigging out?”</p><p>Dae re-altered the facial and physiological construction of the drellahna to reflect the red head again and tapped the collar to lock the selected image. “Oh, I don’t know with these Drell assassins, my dear. . . They always have so many personal inner secrets to hide.”</p><p>Lana narrowed her eyes and let him finish securing the colors of her suit through the wrist cuff.</p><p>“You will need to tap the cuffs once after you have set your preferences to lock them,” he shared with her. “Tap it again to make new modifications.”</p><p>“Did you do something to mess with him? I don’t know your relationship so I can only guess, but he seems very upset,” she said once Dae was through with his instructions.</p><p>He looked at her with the silver discs somewhat brighter. “You have to understand, Miss Alana Corinne.” He handed her a loose billet of IDs and chit cards, passes and such to help with the identity. “Koshisigre is a very complicated Drell with a very profound past. Drell are not able to let go of things so easily. You will have to ask him what happened to his former wife one day.”</p><p>“I know she died. . . Murdered. . . More or less. . .”</p><p>“Less, my dear, less, but enough to know she is dead.” He cleared his throat, guided her out, led her to the front of the store and made sure she understood what she was holding. “These are the rest of your outfit. The images will change as you program them. The collar and cuff transmit their holos to the IDs, so whatever you change it to, will be clearly reflected. As well, the name. . . Names. . . can be changed according to what species, look, or whatever you choose it to become that will be projected to your audience. The images are not physical, mind you, and someone can reach through the falsehood and touch your true face hidden behind the created. As for interference from electronics or magnetics, even biotics, there is a diffuser built into the cuff and the collar that will minimize any risk of flicker or complication resulting from such triggers. So you needn’t worry. Just don’t let anyone touch you, and you will be able to fool even C-Sec security. The scar, however, on your arm and leg. . . I would advise eliminating both eventually. Come back to me when you must. My door is always open to a friend.” He smiled, stepped away, and disappeared into the back again, the doors whispering shut behind him.</p><p>“Hey.” Lana walked over to Thane leaning against the front counter and touched his shoulder. He turned, looking at her with just his face and eyes. “What happened back there?”</p><p>“We should go,” he said, not wanting to talk about it. He held a swallow in his chest. “Are you ready? I assume so because you look like the first woman. The Human with the red hair.”</p><p>“At least it’s working then,” she said, replacing her arm by her side.</p><p>Thane walked to the door, stood beside it as it opened, and waited for her to pass through on her new heels, in her green suit, her red hair waving behind her with barely just a flicker of technological giveaway, before smoothing out, having passed through the disruptor of fake imagery that Dae had programmed into his greeting part of the shop, a failsafe in case he were to be deceived, or attempted to be deceived, by a customer hoping to trick the local Tarsus Nine dealer of extraordinary reimagery.</p><p>Outside, she strode hard on her heels to keep up with him. Not wanting to use his name outside the headgear of Quarian garb, Lana grabbed his shoulder and Thane spun, holding her in both his arms. He kissed her, hard and fierce, not caring if he blurred the imaging. He needed her on his mouth and in his arms.</p><p>Pulling away, he kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see anyone other than her face on the back of his lids.</p><p>“Tell me what’s bothering you,” he heard her say.</p><p>“Not here,” he breathed. “We've stayed too long and I. . . I shouldn’t be holding you.” He dropped away from her, moving into solitary steps as far ahead and away from Lana as he could distance himself. What was he doing. . . The image of the drellahna, so alike to his wife, burned at the corners of his mind. Thane struggled to repress a sob, the imagery of her death and Kolyat’s shocked little face too much for him to bear just then. He walked faster, glancing occasionally at Lana, not wanting to betray her trust and leave her unwatched, but he needed to do so from the shadows and somehow recollect himself.</p><p>Thane gone ahead and disappeared into whatever lanes he followed her from, Lana sought the route to her next target. She didn’t understand what was bothering him, but she needed to keep her head on, and with the new disguise and IDs, which were quite extraordinary what with the amount of sophistication, she could make right towards the Citadel towers. She needed to know if she could get in or not, or if it would require some additional, and special means, to get an audience with the three individuals who had helped lock her out from her future as a marine aboard the Normandy.</p>
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<a name="section0035"><h2>35. Chapter 35</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Garrus growled, “A kid is by no means useful on a trip such as this. You are unwelcome here.”</p><p>Tali pushed the Drell and Turian apart, Joker sitting away from the confrontation. Kolyat scowled and went off into the fore of the ship, sitting down in the cockpit and staring out the windshield.</p><p>“Where the Hell are they,” he grumbled, locking his arms across his chest. He didn’t need to be spoken down to by a Turian, a former C-Sec reject at that. The hour that he had been aboard the Villetta while his father and Lana Shephard were away, Kolyat had been playing with the idea in his head that maybe he could be useful and apply himself as part of this ragtag crew. Surely he was one of the better options. A Turian with a chip on his shoulder, a Human who had more porn on his omnitool than he had bones to break in his body, and a suitrat that could only cause trouble if allowed to linger on the Citadel—no better place to have her than on a ship ready to disembark. She hadn’t said much to him, but apparently Lana valued her for something. But if he had that lot to compete with in back, and if Will was such a prick, where did he have to go? The obvious answer was to stay on the Villetta and help out. He could do that. He was fast, strong, smart. The Turian hadn’t much more on him besides the advantage of some tech weaponry and the element of surprise, what with the shiner he’d laid him out with.</p><p>“If that kid comes,” Garrus growled at Tali, who was just an inch shy of his nose, “we’re going to be playing babysitter and I don’t need to be having Lana look at me like I’m cut out for that shit. I’m not guarding any brats.”</p><p>“Garrus,” Tali said, “I didn’t take you for the sensitive type.”</p><p>“What do you mean I’m sensitive? Are you implying that because I get angry over being stuck with inferior work with regard to watching the three of you, including Lana, I’ve got some sort of sweet spot?”</p><p>Her glowing eyes rolled.</p><p>“You’re not stuck here, Garrus. Lana doesn’t need you. She’s letting you come along,” Tali explained, indicating Kolyat sitting up in the cockpit, pointing to herself, and then waving her hand at Joker. "We all don’t have to be here. We’ve been invited.”</p><p>“Technically I was kidnapped willingly,” Joker corrected.</p><p>“You see?” she said to Garrus.</p><p>Garrus rumbled and stalked off towards the crew cabin, disappearing within. He came back out with a small shield in his claw and held it up towards Kolyat.</p><p>“Hey, you big baby, look at this here. This is my old badge from C-Sec. Executive Office of Investigations. You, you’re just lieutenant status. You should go home and think about how you’ll be better than that. It takes time, and if you abandon the post now, they’ll never let you back in and you’ll be some bum on the Citadel working a crap job packing bags.”</p><p>Kolyat blinked at the held up badge, stood from his seat, and walked back towards the three. He plucked the badge from Garrus’s hand and eyeballed it, turning it this way and that. “Why’d you leave?”</p><p>“I was fired, and it wasn’t worth fighting against anyway,” Garrus griped. “The Executor had it in for me, ever since I dropped the ball on Saren for some smuggling ring I caught his claws in.”</p><p>“Saren Arterius,” Kolyat said wonderingly. “I know him, too. I see him coming through once in a while to meet with Pallin. Kind of a scary guy. He’s got a lot of treatments. Big. Paler than the usual Turian.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, he’s got his connections, doesn’t he. . . Saren’s untouchable. Never known a more invincible Turian to take down than that guy, connection wise.”</p><p>“He’s not going to last much longer,” Tali said cryptically.</p><p>“What do you mean he’s not going to last much longer?” Garrus mulled, flapping his loose mandible. “Is he going to die or he has he got something about to happen to his connections?”</p><p>Tali held up her omnitool. Kolyat and Garrus stared at the device.</p><p>“Lana says she recognized something on the data stream that I recorded from the Geth I found. This is a copy of his voice talking to some lady about Eden Prime.”</p><p>Garrus’s mandibles hung limp. “Where’s Lana now?”</p><p>“Oh, you know,” Tali said, shrugging, “she and Koshisigre—“</p><p>“Thane,” the men all said.</p><p>“Thane. . . Were to go to some ID counterfeiting shop and get her something to hide herself decentlike. Then Lana was going to make a trip to the towers to see if she could get an audience with the Council and share a copy of my recording with them.”</p><p>Garrus snatched up his omnitool from a nearby table and dialed Lana on the com. He spoke as soon as it picked up.</p><p>“Lana, you come back here right now. You go to the Council, you’re as good as locked up.”</p><p>“Who’s this?” said the voice on the other line. “Is this Garrus? Garrus Vakarian?”</p><p>Garrus snarled. “Who is on the cuff? Where’s Lana? Where’s. . .” He left unsaid Thane’s name in case there was a hope he might not be presently apprehended, as he feared Lana had been. Feeling nauseous, he asked again, “To whom am I speaking, please?”</p><p>“Bailey. Owen Bailey. Your former captain, you Turian asshole.”</p><p><em>Fuck</em>. “Sir, a pleasure to hear your pleasant voice again,” he drawled through his fangs. “Any chance you happen to see a pretty brunette with those Eurasian features you like?”</p><p>“She’s here. Looking right at me.”</p>
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<a name="section0036"><h2>36. Chapter 36</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana stood outside the Citadel Tower entrance, Thane watching from across the park as she met with the C-Sec security head in charge of determining whether or not she could deliver a message to the Council. She evidently knew the captain who was looking at and scanning her omnitool for weaponry. Lana had deactivated her tech from Dae and given these to Thane, preferring to meet in person with Bailey, in whom she trusted. Why, he didn’t know.</p><p>Bailey was holding the omnitool when it squawked out an angry Turian voice. He instantly recognized it and looked up, alarmed, at Lana.</p><p>After having introduced himself to his former agent, he offered the omnitool back to her. Lana put it on and spoke to Garrus.</p><p>“What’s the matter, Garrus? You getting along back there?”</p><p>“What are you doing? Where is Koshisigre?”</p><p>“I left him behind,” and she had, though he was ready in case something should go wrong. “Listen, can I talk to you later? I’m meeting with a friend.”</p><p>“Lana, you’re going to get yourself caught and if you’re by yourself—“</p><p>“Goodbye, Garrus.”</p><p>She shut off the call and looked at Bailey with an apologetic shrug.</p><p>“He’s a bit of a pain.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Bailey replied, waving her into the lobby after him, “I liked him when he was an officer, but when he became a detective, he just kind of changed. Went crazy from the pressure, I suppose. Pallin was and always has been an ass, but he put a lot of pressure on Garrus. Eventually fired him after a shitstorm one day. How you been holding up, Lana? I heard you and Will split.”</p><p>“That’s part of the reason I’m here, Bailey. Will’s APF.”</p><p>“APF. . . Is that the Alliance Foundations program they forced you into?”</p><p>She nodded. “Listen, I can’t say much, but you have to watch your back, Bailey. I need this meeting with the Council to find out who’s on my side and who I can trust.”</p><p>“Lana, I think it’s great to see you, and you know I’ll help in what ways I can. You helped me out a long time ago, and I don’t forget a favor. . . But when the Council sees you, they may all shit a brick. I just hope whatever you have on that omnitool is enough to redeem you and save my head, because there’s certain to be fallback on me for letting you into the personal chambers. Not sure why you want to go to their private quarters though. . .”</p><p>“Because I don’t want to see them yet. I’m just hear to drop off a file for each of them to listen to. It’s only a maildrop, Bailey. Nothing more than that. Did you turn off the cameras like I asked?”</p><p>“Yeah, they won’t see anything but your calling card. Lana, I’m real sorry about what happened to you. I think it shook a lot of people, to know that the Alliance could take down one of their own the way they did. I know why they wanted to go about it that way, but what with everything’s that happened, maybe this info you’ve got will help expedite things against the Turians.”</p><p>“It will.”</p><p>Lana stopped outside the door to the lift that would carry her to the seventeenth floor, where she would find Councilor Sparatus’s personal rooms in which he prepared for Council sessions. She ran her fingers over the keycard slot and let the hack from Tali go to work, reaching out from her Savant and activating the secure algorithms in the Citadel locks. Within minutes, she had access, and while Bailey stood to keep watch, not that it was necessary in the otherwise empty chambers, Lana went inside to the bedroom and office connected by a small step and dividing screens. The hush of the room aside from the click of her heels sent an eeriness through her, but Lana made right to the desk and hovered her omnitool over the computer. She waited until the file downloaded with an encryption that broke through Sparatus’s security on his inlet and saved her file from eyes that could pry.</p><p>Turning on heel, she rejoined Bailey in the hall and he motioned her on towards Councilors Tevos and Valern’s chambers. Lana repeated the same process, thanking Tali in her head and saying to her from afar that her charter fee was fully paid.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0037"><h2>37. Chapter 37</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sealing up the rooms, Lana and Bailey made for the exit lifts and took these down to the bottom level, where Lana hugged him goodbye, told him to say hello to his daughter for her, and went out to the main concourse. Flicking on her collar and then her wrist cuff as she passed a wall dividing the lanes of walkers, Lana came out the opposite end with red hair and green eyes, catching a stray look or two from passers by dressed in both business and casual wear. And when she walked by a flower shop, someone came out and offered her a white rose. Lana looked up at the face and smiled, but her smile melted when she saw who was looking back at her to be the one and only William Clarke.</p><p>“Hello,” he said, catching her off guard. “I normally spend my afternoons here if I have some time to spare from work. John Shephard.”</p><p><em>You son of a bitch. And with my own last name,</em> Lana thought with a cool smile.</p><p>“Alana Corinne.”</p><p>His smiled broadened as he took her hand in his and kissed it on the knuckle.</p><p>Thane watched from a tree in the garden, flicking a coin of gold over and over through his fingers. He was agitated and concerned. Since Lana had no means of communication by which he could have warned her, he having Tali’s headgear with the earcom inside and Lana having not reactivated her omnitool’s call volume, she had walked right into Will Clarke waiting outside the Human embassy in a flower shop and café on the Citadel Common. He cursed inwardly, wondering if and when Will realized he was talking to his ex-wife, what Thane would do. Seeing his vision of Irikah playing over and over in his mind was making him feel a little unsorted, and Thane’s inner turmoil and angst was building. He felt dangerous and volatile, ready to do something if anything happened to Lana who had appeared as a vision of his deceased, beloved siha. His lost mitali reborn.</p><p>“John Shephard,” Lana repeated after she had sat down and ordered an espresso across from the burly, handsome blond who was smoking a bedi that he decided to put out. Lana hadn’t realized that Will smoked at all. She was seething, but outside, cool. “Not related to the famous Lana Shephard, Fallen Star of Terra. . . Are you?” She kept her face expressionless, not want to give away any familiar quirks he might connect to her real identity. This would be a real test for her, to see if she could pull off pretending <em>not</em> to be the woman he had raped and married and loved for some small portion of the past three years. She wondered if the bastard could smell her. She hoped he would give her a reason to stab him in the heart, though she didn’t have anything with which to do the honor. And then, surprisingly, as she sat there across from him and listened to him start telling her a little about what he was doing on the Citadel in terms of work, another made up story but close to realistic as he looked and did for his career as an auditor, attorney, and forensic psychologist of sorts, she felt sorry for him. And her heart panged.</p><p>
  <em>Oh my God. . . Why do I feel like crying?</em>
</p><p>She dabbed at her eye with a finger, the eye with the most threat of beading.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning forward and removing the tray with the rubbed out bedi and ash. “I’m sorry. My work is stressful at times and I enjoy a smoke once in a while. I hope the flowers here help to remind me why I need to quit. Do you need eyedrops? I understand the bedi and the pollen can be irritating to others.”</p><p>
  <em>You sit around flowers to absorb the smoke, while your clothes absorb the sweetness. Now I know why when you went on your trips you would always come back smelling like perfume. And here I was thinking it was just one of the whores you picked up to forget about me and David. . . Funny how I’m experiencing you in your element.</em>
</p><p>It reminded her of the time they had met on shore leave, the December of 2182, and how admirable it had felt to her to be sleeping with such a handsome, intelligent minded gentleman who was rough in the bed and sweet on the street. Lana relaxed as well as she could into the wire chair that was digging into her back, deliberately trying to distract herself from her anger.</p><p>A waiter came by, Salarian, who glanced down at her and frowned.</p><p>“Do you need refreshment, miss? We have Human liquor and wine to accommodate the afternoon itch, so to speak.”</p><p>“I’ve already ordered an espresso, thanks.”</p><p>The Salarian blinked in that asinine way of theirs, and Lana focused hard on Will sitting across from her. He was looking at the Salarian, and his gray eyes fell back to Lana as the Alien went away.</p><p>“So what do you do for work, Ms. Corinne?”</p><p>Lana held her hands tight in her lap and smiled. She wondered how shit-eating a grin she could give him with her new persona.</p><p>“I work in forensic psychology. Helping out women who are abused by powerful men.”</p><p>Thane read her lips and smiled. He was most likely going to have an opportunity to have at with William Clarke if she kept up this course.</p><p>William’s eye twitched. He licked his lip and leaned forward. “Forensic psychology? What exactly do you work for, if I may ask? I have been a part of the published membership for twenty years now.”</p><p>“Pathologies of the Mind, Current Annals of Forensic Psychology in the Twenty-Second Century CE. Board of FPs. You?”</p><p>He smiled. “I’m familiar.”</p><p>
  <em>Of course you are, you prick.</em>
</p><p>They fell into easy dialogue, all of it made up. Lana pretending to be someone else as well as he was. Eventually he had to go, but asked for her number and left his calling card: a hotel key and an invitation by mouth to join him later for further discussion of her work. Lana smiled and fluttered her eyes at him, thinking of the first time they’d met. . . And that she had done the exact same thing.</p><p>Will paused, looking at her with a sudden suspicion.</p><p>“What is it, Mr. Shephard? Am I arousing your memory of someone?”</p><p>“No,” he replied, muscles in his face easing over his brow, “not at all. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you before. . . Thank you, Alana. I hope you’ve enjoyed this engagement as much as I have. Don’t worry for the bill. I’ve an account here that will take care of everything. Do consider my offer. It would be nice to get to know you in more private conditions.” He waved at the Common area and picked up his coat, sliding out from the chair and bowing to her lightly. Lana watched him go, then looked across the thoroughfare to where she had seen Thane watching her for a time.</p>
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<a name="section0038"><h2>38. Chapter 38</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“That was very dangerous, Lana.”</p><p>Outside the edge of the reclamation port, Lana stopped and removed the imagery being projected by her collar and cuff.</p><p>“I was caught off guard, Thane. Nothing came of it.”</p><p>“I was ready to kill him if he touched you.”</p><p>She looked sharply at him. At the given moment, he appeared as if a wounded animal trying to hold itself upright. Had he been jealous? she wondered. The smell of the processing vats was getting to her and she wanted to move, get aboard the Villetta. . . But then there would be Garrus waiting to be dealt with, Kolyat would be Thane’s issue, and she didn’t know what was going on in his head.</p><p>“Walk with me.”</p><p>He needed no bidding. He would follow her wherever she went if she did not tell him to stay behind right now, so bent was his mind by its turmoil and weight. She was wearing the ridiculously colored red and white suit with the blue pants, but it would come to absorb the colors of his own clothes and scales as he caught up with her and walked alongside her.</p><p>There was a cutaway from the concourse up ahead and it led to some apartments. Lana went inside the entrance hall, followed by Thane, knocked on each apartment door until she found one loose and open, and went inside, carefully checking around to see if anyone was home. The apartment was furnished, immaculate, like a modeling room for visiting guests who wished to consider the value of purchasing or renting there. Lana locked the door and turned to Thane, standing alone in the room and folding and unfolding his hands. She approached him slowly, taking off the jacket on her shoulders and throwing this over a chair.</p><p>“We have five minutes at best,” she whispered, taking his hands and kissing them gently, “before someone probably knocks on that door and interrupts us. I need you to talk to me and tell me right now what happened at Dae’s when you saw that Drell he changed the image to. Was it someone who reminded you of someone else? Thane?”</p><p>She brushed his brow scales with her fingers, running these down and over the flares of the small scales around his ears and tebris. She kissed his scale beneath his nose, moving to his mouth and biting his upper lip so he would respond. He did.</p><p>Pushing up under her elbows, he raised her arms over her head and reached back down to pull her undershirt up out of the pants, raising this over her head and off her arms. “Lana,” he said, crushing their mouths together in a hot, terrible kiss that picked her up and carried her across the room and onto the mantle of some model fireplace. His need was terrible. He hated seeing her feign diplomatic romance with the man sent to kill his son and him, who had raped her and given her a child all so that they could commit to performing their duty for the damn Alliance. Thane’s pants came down with hers, the shirt fell, and sprawling against the wall with two hands above and his heels grounded into the floor, he let her feel him where he had no business going. “Lana . . .” he sighed, moaning she against him as heat and thickness filled between her thighs.</p><p>“Oh, God—I—“</p><p>“No, don’t speak. Don’t speak. Quiet,” he shushed her, biting down on her ear as he rose up onto the balls of his feet and felt himself engulfed.</p><p>“Thane—“</p><p>She bit her lip, trying not to talk, letting him take her above the fireplace. This build up of days, unwanted, no, bridled, yes. . . She had never felt so wanted before. Lana huffed as he shook against her, riding her up that wall with the spell they were releasing together. “Thane. . .” she whimpered, clutching at the scales of his black and green shoulders. “Thane. . .”</p><p>“Call me more,” he demanded, urging her with a thrust, delicious and sweet to that very spot she had only dreamed and wondered of. Lana’s eyes opened wide as he found it again, and rolled back as his teeth set on her ear and dragged down her throat, his tongue hard and wet to lap up the salty sweetness of her skin and the smell of flowers and nectar.</p><p>He would have her. She was his. <em>Damn him,</em> Thane thought, pushing Will away. <em>Curse the defiler that would touch my woman and treat her that way. She is mine. I will do anything for her.</em></p><p>“I will do anything for you, Lana,” he mumbled into her hair, palm braced against the roughness of the paint on the wall. Who painted the walls around here? He started to laugh at the curiously random thought as he rode the next spell and the next, Lana gripping the flares of his crest on either side of his skull and directing his mouth to hers.</p><p>“I need you, baby, I need this. Please don’t stop. You feel too good to stop. Please—“</p><p>He snared her lip in his teeth and bit gently, letting his under him bring the pleasure and the pain. She tightened her arms around him, legs hooked at the heel and calf behind his back. Thane delivered a throbbing series of sweet pain high into her center, grasping at her hip as he held her from slipping. The display of his striated back and green muscle writhing and flexing into her Human geography and skin was erotic and sinful, on display in their reflection on the back wall mirrors watching them die in each other’s sins.</p><p>“Don’t!” she shouted, feeling his surge inside her, knowing now there was no difference in this act across two different species. He filled her perfectly, and she was sinful enough to like him and let him do as he wanted.</p><p>“Lana. . .” he swallowed her name as well as her touch, and the embrace she had on his swell. It did not matter that she was different from he. . . She felt like harmony to him.</p><p>He laid her down on the couch. It was white, or off cream. He set to caressing her arm and kissing her face, letting her know it was more than just an angry fuck. He really thought he was beginning to fall, and although it scared him, he felt ready this time.</p><p>Not like last time. Not like through the scope. Where he’d been thrown back from his rifle and startled against the door of the apartment he’d set up to watch for his target. Not when Irikah had surprised him, caught him off his guard, and fumbling, stumbling blindly, he had fallen into her mercy and love.</p><p>Lana looked up into the eyes beaming down at her, her heart all aflutter. Small sparks were wiggling in her eyes and she felt mildly itchy all over her front where his chest had bumped against her repeatedly and titilating. Her thighs were raw from his rub and burn, but the worst part was how sore and nauseous she was beginning to feel, which made no sense to her, what with how good and mind shaking it had been.</p><p>“Thane?”</p><p>“Siha?”</p><p>“I think I need to throw up.”</p><p>“Oh. . . Here. . .”</p><p>He helped her stand up, wobbling with her disoriented sense of balance, and guided her into the bathroom which he assumed would be in the hall between the kitchen and the entry by which they’d come. Holding her from the waist and hair, he waited with her as she grabbed onto her bearings and held the sink island.</p><p>“I feel. . . Kind of loopy. . .” she said, once they realized nothing was due to come up.</p><p>“When was the last time you ate anything?”</p><p>“You?”</p><p>He pushed out his lower lip and tipped his head to the left. “Perhaps it is time to grab some antivenom. I was concerned that this might be a result of us mingling together.”</p><p>“Mingling? That’s what you want to call what we just did on the fireplace?”</p><p>She swung around to look at him, her breasts heavy in her bra. Thane slid his hands between her buttocks and the sink, cupping her while he kissed her left jaw and moved to her mouth. Lana let him through, it being okay since she hadn’t lost her stomach as she’d thought she was about to from the dizziness and lights annoying the circumference of her visual field.</p><p>“Drell venom can have adverse effects on the unwary.”</p><p>“We need a pass-thru,” she said to the side of his cheek, Thane rubbing his teeth across her skin towards her ear. He squeezed her breast through her bra and went directly from there to between her legs.</p><p>“Oh, God, no,” she jerked at his touch. “I’m super sensitive down there at the moment,” she laughed at his surprise.</p><p>Thane’s expression eased into a smile. He touched her cheek and mouth with his other hand, probing with his tonguefor her to give back, which she did, unable to resist the pleasure he induced from her.</p><p>“This was <em>not</em> the reason I broke in here,” she said after they’d finished kissing slow and sensually the other’s mouth. “I brought you in here to discuss what happened,” she said to be clear, looking into the dark eyes with their shimmery green discs that were almost brown.</p><p>Thane applied his skull against hers, on the fleshy part of their brows.</p><p>“Not now, Lana. Not now. Let me just enjoy this. . . Us. . . For the remaining time.”</p><p>And for the remaining time of two minutes, he stood pressed against her brow, threading their fingers together as best they could. He a Drell with four fingers to each hand, and she, Human, with five.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0039"><h2>39. Chapter 39</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana dressed and slowly made her way to the door, but before she could open it, Thane scooped her up and danced, twirling with her in a circle.</p><p>“Thane,” she said, pushing away from him, unable to keep from laughing, “please, that is not advised right now. I will have to really throw up on you if you spin me with these damn lights in my head.”</p><p>He put her down, touched her thigh, and walked her out, hand on her arm, smile on his face, and Lana his. Or so he thought.</p><p>The lights dimmed. Lana couldn’t tell if she was hallucinating.</p><p>But by the sudden pain in her abdomen, she knew she and Thane were being ambushed.</p><p>And at the smell of flowers, she finally threw up.</p><p>Someone cursed as something hot hit her face. Lana flared her biotics, and in the light of purple haze that was wild and fierce, she saw Thane protecting her from three men covered from head to foot in black garb and hoods.</p><p>“Thane, get down!”</p><p>His obsidian eyes turned to reflect the silhouette of her wreathed in dark energy, his arm pulling back with the shine of something wet and thin coming to reflect her as well, and he flattened to the mess of the hall as a tunnel of fire the likes he had never seen issued from the purple and black bowels of Hell.</p><p>The building shuddered as through the entrance hall belched a spray of bodies, armor, paintings and pieces of ceiling, flooring, and walls. It carried to the glass front and out onto the concourse above the drop to the reclamation dock.</p><p>Lana shook with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, her eyes on fire and the venom being eaten by her amps filtering through the power and body chemicals produced by such a demand from her central nervous system. Thane stood up, the filth on his shirt ignored as he grabbed her arm and ran towards the back exit.</p><p>“We may be boxed in, Lana,” he said, holding the handle and swinging it wide. A spray of gunfire followed the order of a voice demanding checks, confirmation, and the get go. Thane slammed the door as it ricocheted bullets and hissed with fire.</p><p>“Lana,” her omnitool squawked, it being Tali’s voice, “come through the front. We’ve got you covered.” Her Quarian thick accent was music to their ears.</p><p>Running out through the dock area where the vats opened into threatening pools of filth below, Lana and Thane had burst through the front of the apartments and run past the bodies her energy had ruined. Out from the Villetta, stationed behind barriers, Kolyat, Garrus, and Tali were armed with the AK-57s Tali had found in the ship, taking shots at the figures wearing what looked to be a mix of black op and Alliance armor. Thane ducked Lana’s head as they ran for the ship, dodging a bullet flare and hearing the orders around them.</p><p>“They must have heard that there was a ship docked here and put one and one together,” Thane said, then looking at her wild green eyes, “or Will suspected who you were and had us marked and followed!”</p><p>“It didn’t help that you were standing in plain view only across the lane! What was the matter with you!”</p><p>They jumped at the same time off a ramp that bent right, the path they were following straight to the ship instead of bending down towards the lower landings. With a roll, both of them up to their feet in seconds, Lana and Thane latched onto each other’s hands, he pulling her ahead as he was far faster and longer in stride.</p><p>He turned as they reached Tali first, yanking back on her loader, cleaning out the inside, reattaching a new chamber of ammunition and ratcheting it back into place. The Quarian in the silken armor of plastic and veneer leaned forward and plugged off more shots, determined to keep them covered until they’d made it back to the ship.</p><p>Lana’s biotics fizzled out as she came to a sudden stop and collapsed. Thane looked down, only then realizing she’d been hit and in her side. She was leaking blood and gasped at the pain as her adrenaline dissipated, and began to shake.</p><p>Garrus ran over and picked up her arm with Thane grabbing the other to help carry her inside the remaining steps. “Polonium,” he said after he sniffed. “She needs a doctor!”</p><p>“She’s venom inside her!”</p><p>Garrus shot him a look that could kill. Thane growled back, “What!”</p><p>“I guess it should be expected,” he said, waving for Kolyat and Tali to come back in when they could. “We saw you on the top of the docks and were wondering what the Hell you two were doing! Then we heard the explosion and Tali was fast on her feet! Seems to be a remembered experience for her!”</p><p>“Would you guys get on the ship already?” Joker called through their linked coms. “You’ll stand a better chance in here than out there! We’ve got shielding and they’re regrouping at the top!”</p><p>Tali and Kolyat doubled back, running up the ramp behind Lana’s dragging feet.</p><p>She felt sick and in pain. The polonium had been used before by her in stunting the recovery time of Krogan during fights back in the Alliance, but now to have had it used on her hindered her ability to adapt to the energy usage of her powers and the loss of blood was making her tired. It had only felt like a breathtaking punch, nothing more than that, and she hadn’t felt it in the seconds after. But now, inside the ship, it felt as if she were burning up. Lana moaned as she was lain on her left, to keep the gravity flowing the blood away from the wound. Joker closed up and sealed the ship, working diligently in the cockpit as Garrus and Thane left Lana to Kolyat and Tali’s care, the Quarian having moved them away from Lana to help with diagnosing the extent of the wound.</p><p>“Clean the blood off her face, but take care with your hands, Kolyat,” Tali instructed the young officer.</p><p>Kolyat understood and pulled out a kit of towels and supplies from the bathroom, handing these to Tali as he took one for his own use. Applying the cloth to Lana’s eyes, he tamped up the blood of whoever’s was on her face. He looked to his father, worried for a second or two, but saw that he was standing with his back to him, tall and straight. The knife in his boot had blood on the handle, slightly staining his pants.</p><p>“Dad, are you okay—“</p><p>“Quiet, Kolyat. . . We are listening. . .”</p><p>They were, to the men gathering up at the top of the ramp leading down towards the vats. Lana’s husband was clearly seen by way of the blond hair revealed from the helmet he had removed from his head. He depressed something nearest his right shoulder and spoke into a mic. Another armored soldier knelt farther forward a few steps, aiming a speaker directed at the ship unclasping itself from the dock.</p><p>“Joker,” William Clarke directed his first statement, “open the ramp and let my men in. I know you were kidnapped against your will and the Villetta was hijacked by three hostile men and women, my ex-wife among them. I know you have two Drell with you, and I can give the C-Sec guard a pardon for his father, but there will be consequences if Kolyat does not realize he has been deceived into defending the crew aboard that ship from the rightful law of justice.”</p><p>“Ah,” Joker tapped the speaker button, relaying his voice to the docking area and the men waiting for them, “I would do that if I weren’t pretty sure you were trying to cover up an insidious plot, sir. No offense, but I heard the story, and knowing you, I kind of believe it.”</p><p>Will depressed the key of his speaker again. “You heard what, Joker? That Lana worked for Project Foundations? That she was as willing a soldier as I? Do you know what you’re harboring if you refuse to open that ship up to me? That woman is a danger and a threat to an important mission. Do you understand me, Joker? We are trying to stop something she has witnessed, and we can’t do it with her alive and threatening what we have accomplished.”</p><p>“I think subjecting someone to murder is considered highly llegal and unethical. Plus, isn’t she the mother of your child? . . Sir?” Joker hit the END button on his console and looked up at Garrus and Thane. “Am I doing this right?”</p><p>Garrus chuckled and moved Joker over. He depressed the START key for the next recording.</p><p>“Sir, I am Garrus Vakarian. Would you state your name so I can record your bullshit?”</p><p>Will’s jaw flexed in anger. He lowered his arm and thought. Picking up the conversation again, he depressed the key on his mic. “Mr. Vakarian, I understand you were released by Executor Pallin back in ‘84, just as we were starting the project. You were known to be a bit of a loose cannon then. Your shameful behavior as an insubordinate investigator became the reason for the recourse against you, and you were released from service, much like Lana for her incompetence and disgraceful conduct which concluded her service after the conflict at Eden Prime.”</p><p>Inside the deeper part of the ship, Lana heard the words of her ex-husband and growled as Tali removed the polonium round from her right side. “It was a God damn massacre!” Kolyat pushed her head back down, trilling softly at the woman to keep her calm while Tali worried around in the wound, struggling to hold onto the bullet. Lana hissed and groaned as the clips Tali was using bumped and pushed aside exposed tissues. “Oh God. . .” She paled and fell backwards, her cheek on Kolyat’s hand.</p><p>A purling, hollow growl filled the cockpit as Garrus shut off the com and looked about.</p><p>“Does this ship have a missile I could fire at his fucking face?”</p><p>“Civilian class,” Joker said unhelpfully, “though we’re allowed to protect ourselves in person. Anything else you want to say?”</p><p>Garrus hit the com and the record button again. “You like to subject war heroes to imprisonment and rape? Coerce a defenseless woman into your shitty idea of some great cause? You ever think that forcing her to have a child was a little inhumane? You obviously don’t want her to live to tell the truth. Why don’t you just let her go? Probably would do less harm based on her track record, compared to yours and what you’re admitting to being engaged with. . . Major.”</p><p>“Anywhere you go, Vakarian, the Foundations will not be far behind,” William replied, “and you will be on my personal audit list. . . You and that Drell you’re standing next to. . . Thane Krios, I know who you are and that you think you’ve got something special with my ex-wife. . . She feels good now, but when she turns on you like she’s turned on us. . . The Foundations. . . Don’t be surprised when you see those pretty green eyes looking back at you from the end of a knife. . . She’s far more traitorous than you realize.”</p><p>“Major,” Thane said, moving his face closer to the com beside Joker, “you forced her into a lie. Of course, she’s a threat to you.” Keeping his dark eyes on the blond man standing among two rows of guns trained on the ship, awaiting orders to fire, he added, “Come for her, William, and you will see my eyes at the hilt of the blade I end you with. . . Accius.”</p><p>Thane smiled at the surprised look on Will’s face, seen even from afar.</p><p>Lana’s eyes opened in surprise, too, staring at the polonium laced bullet rising up between Tali’s fingers. Tali and Kolyat both exhaled, relieved to have removed the round.</p><p>“Fire,” William snarled, having shut off the mic and stepped back behind his men. “Aim for the forward thrusters.”</p><p>“Shit,” Joker said, realizing where Will would have the men shoot first. “Everybody hold on. We’re going to make a hole.”</p><p>He hit the reverse and applied the forward thrusters into life. Outside the Villetta, the small stunted tubes lit up with blue light, and exerted at full force, ripped the Villetta away from the reclamation docks, tearing with it the seals of the port. Dark space began to immediately suck at all within the arena.</p><p>Will threw up a barrier with his omnitool, encapsulating his men, and cursed, because the bullets would not fire beyond his projection. He was powerful evidently to Garrus and Thane’s eyes as he was able to create a bubble of safety for his soldiers, but this was good in that they now understood William to be biotic. And even more of a danger.</p><p>He was a soldier, like Lana. And both were driven with the veracity towards either wrong or right in their own minds. And while Will believed that what Project Foundations would provide in terms of a solution to the reaper threat, Lana believed the only way to stop it was to destroy the bridge that would connect the reapers to their galaxy. . . Saren.</p>
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<a name="section0040"><h2>40. Chapter 40</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Will watched the Villetta pull away and drop out of view. As the Citadel’s emergency barrier engaged and the threat of the vacuum was eliminated, he disengaged his biotics and turned to his chief man. “Aiolos, get the Misrephoth-Maim ready. We’re going hunting.” He took one more look at the hole in the docks and, setting his jaw, ordered his men to follow him. He was going to have to explain to his superior that Lana had escaped the Citadel.</p><p>But at least they still had David.</p><p>He turned on his com on the omnitool and hailed headquarters.</p><p>“Foundations. Who is calling and where may I direct you?”</p><p>“Accius. Connect me to Salvatore.”</p><p>A Turian’s flanged voice picked up within seconds. “Accius. . . Have you destroyed her yet?”</p><p>“She’s been hit with a polonium round, but the Drell and his companions have removed her from my access. We will follow as commanded.”</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” Saren replied on the other end. “Make sure you kill her. And the Turian, too. I want all of them obsolete. We cannot compromise the mission, Accius.”</p><p>“Yes, sir. . . Salvatore, the Drell knows my code name.”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” Saren said, looking on at the Krogan staring back at him from the chamber below his observation glass. “He lost his value to the Primacy long ago. Kill him, and his boy. Their deaths will make no difference.”</p><p>The Turian ended the call and replaced his claw on the termination key for the incineration chamber. He eyed the defiant blue ones glowing back at him.</p><p>“Sorry, little Krogan, but I can’t have dissonance in my army.”</p><p>About to flick the switch to incinerate, Saren stopped when the Geth next to him blurted, “There has been a breach in lab three. Permission to use force against Salarian test subject undergoing indoctrination?”</p><p>“No,” Saren snarled, committed to his purpose with the Salarian that he needed for his plans on Sur’Kesh. “Detain and resolve without destroying any more tissues. I don’t want evidence of his being tampered with, and I’ve already repaired the hand and throat. . . But if he does give more trouble than—“</p><p>“Subject has disengaged three platforms. Trajectory cannot be determined. Predictability at—“</p><p>“Shut up.” Saren forgot the Krogan about to be burned alive and went himself to find Mordin Solus.</p><p>He barreled through the Geth waiting at his beck and call, deliberate to smash anything that got in his way. Angered that his Geth could not handle one sly, small Salarian the likes of an engineer and doctor with a degree apparently in dismembering Geth Primes, he took the head off one Geth, digging his talons into the metal with a screech of sound and twisting the cables out.</p><p>“Fool contraptions! Inferior quality! No wonder the Great Ones want a better army! I will destroy you all when my army is complete. Inferior! Inferior! Inferior!” he growled.</p><p> </p><p>Mordin Solus glanced about, looking for a door to emerge from and find his exit to the main corridor. He stumbled into a chamber with rooms covered by glass, and as he stared about in horror, he saw his fellow members from past Salarian Special Tactics Groups detained behind the sealed doors. They stood dumbly in the rooms, arms hanging like gaunt soldiers, eyes vacuous and uniforms loose as though they had not been fed recently or in days for that matter. He walked up to one such room and placed his hands on the glass door, looking through at the agents mingling about, doing nothing besides standing in place and swaying to some unknown source.</p><p>“My. . .” he murmured, closing up his hand in a fist and hitting the glass once, hard, hoping to get their attention. They were ignoring him, immune to stimulus and noise. “My. . . Friends,” Mordin murmured again, thrice pounding as he stared at their unassuming faces. And a chill went through him, that this might be what happens to him. He had to get out. He had to escape and tell the Union that what Saren was doing was indeed to the contrary of what the Alliance was saying and the Councilor was promoting. He hit the glass once more, and tearing his eyes away, ran, stumbling, towards the far exit.</p><p>But the door was opening. There was no glass, so he had not yet been seen. Mordin ran over to one of the sealed rooms and stood directly in front of the wall, clear, three Salarians wavering behind him. Mordin did the same, swaying his body, dressed in the same lab garb as the others, that the Geth had draped him in. He looked like a patient among the Salarians trapped in the cell, and as the Geth walked by, they did not detect that he was outside the cell, but appeared as though he were within. Saren came next, storming through with a Geth head in his clasp, trailing cables, wires, and a viscous white fluid. Once they were through the room, on their way to the lab from which he’d fled, Mordin jumped away from the glass, amused with his ploy despite being trapped in the doom of his fellow STG agents. He ran to the opposite door that Saren and his Geth had marched through and throwing it open, stepped out into the hall. The walls were dark and smooth, being leftover from some unknown colony and re-fabricated to accommodate Saren’s needs, all by Geth hands. He pattered down the corridor, moving exactly in the direction, unbeknownst to him, that Saren had come from, and turning left, came to a door and worked it open with a needle and a scalpel that had been used on him from lab three. The lock was surprisingly not as well-built as the first one, but by the incineration burns on the interior, he began to understand why. For looking up—and looking down at him—was the biggest damn Krogan that Mordin Solus had ever laid eyes on.</p>
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<a name="section0041"><h2>41. Chapter 41</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana coughed and reached for the water and medicine that Tali provided, courtesy of the supplies she had picked up with Joker’s help in the wards. Tali flashed Joker a smile with her eyes, and Kolyat helped Lana to sit up carefully and drink her water.</p><p>“Thanks,” she mumbled, eyeing the son of Thane carefully.</p><p>Kolyat gave her a sheepish grin. “Don’t worry. . . I don’t intend to choke you out with a sleeper hold.” His eye puffed out with the mark of swelling, looking a little worse so soon after Garrus had punched him.</p><p>Lana choked down the pill that settled in an empty stomach. <em>Well, at least the side effects of Thane’s venom seem to have worn down</em>. She looked up at the Drell in the corner, his thoughts kept to himself, but as if he felt through some unseen force her glance, Thane looked up and met her eyes with a smile. They had knowing looks, one to the other, and she would have blown him a kiss were it not for his son keeping her head up.</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Garrus said, shooing Kolyat away with his claws. “Let her go sleep. The polonium will slow down your recharge of faculties for your biotics,” he said to her, “so keep your pain in the ass self still and try to relax.”</p><p>“We need to find Saren,” Lana said sleepily to the dismayed looks of the others.</p><p>“We need to hide and find you a real doctor. That wound needs to be looked at and we don’t have antibiotics.”</p><p>“We can bring her to Cerberus.”</p><p>Garrus reeled.</p><p>“Are you fucking kidding me? <em>That’s</em> who you picked her up for? They’re terrorists!”</p><p>“Not this particular cell. My contact has requested Lana personally. He is not typical of the majority of the group.”</p><p>“So he’s a flounder! An extrapolary! An outlier! You know what that group has done in the past two decades? Murder! Assassination! Theft! Blackmail! Not to mention kidnapping and dissension!”</p><p>“I’m sure the group has its reputation. My only detail was to bring Lana to him so he may talk to her. Regardless of your feelings, Garrus, this must be done. Two reasons being my son, his health depends on it, and Lana’s, who will be delivered to Cerberus by a colleague.”</p><p>“How’s that going?” Lana asked, ignoring Garrus’s sputtering. “I mean, have you heard any word from your friend about picking up David?”</p><p>Thane checked his omnitool, while Garrus resumed his tirade.</p><p>“You’re stealing your kid? From Clarke? He’s going to be so pissed at us, we may as well have a bounty on all of our heads for a million credits each! I know I would spare no expense to hunt down the kidnappers who stole my kid!”</p><p>“But, Garrus,” Tali said, “David’s her son, remember?”</p><p>“No,” he pointed at Lana, “you gave him up, <em>remember</em>? You left him in custody of that prick who’s out to get us now, and he’s already set on killing you plus we for associating <em>with</em> you and saving your ass. Just think what he’ll do or what methods he’ll employ if you take that kid from him!”</p><p>“Garrus,” Lana said, exhausted, “if Will was using me to create a child for the project’s personal use. . . Don’t you think he might have something evil up his sleeve, in store for David?” Her eyes fluttered closed as she laid back down. “I can’t risk. . . I thought leaving him with Will, he’d be okay. . . That I was doing both of them a favor, but now that Will’s gunning for me. . . Things changed. . . I’m not so sure that leaving David behind was in his best interest now. . . I think Project Foundation is something else. . . Now that they don’t. . . Require my help. . . Anymore. . .”</p><p>She squeezed her hand in a fist, felt the medicine, with the polonium, taking into effect. The pain in her side throbbed, but Lana was soon out, disappearing into visions with her ex-husband and little boy.</p><p>Thane moved to sit beside her, where Kolyat had been, and touching her brow, removed a strand of hair from her face.</p><p>Kolyat watched the tender touch of his father, given to Lana, and turned to walk away and go join Joker in the cockpit, steering the ship towards dark space.</p><p>“Well, so much for C-Sec,” Kolyat grumbled. He looked at Joker next to him. “So where are we headed? We all good on supplies? Weapons? An alibi in case we get pulled over?”</p><p>“You know how to make up affidavits,” Joker said, pushing back, “so think of something. What would we tell a ship if we got contacted and inquired of?”</p><p>“I guess we could say we’re couriering a patient in need of medical attention.”</p><p>Joker scoffed. “Might as well invite them to call the patrols, and depending where we are, that could be Alliance or worse.”</p><p>“So what about this Cerberus my dad’s talking about? Won’t they have medical?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Joker shrugged, scratching his curls. He looked up at him. “Go ask him.”</p><p>“Hey, Dad,” Kolyat called, turning around. His father was lifting Lana, repositioning her on a pillow. “You want to go hit up Cerberus, we need to know where.”</p><p>“Kahje. Cerberus has a way point where I am to bring Lana. . . But I intend to stay with her, and you will accompany me. Perhaps we can meet with some friends while we are there.”</p><p>Kolyat glanced at Joker, then walked towards his father. “You thinking of leaving me? On Kahje?”</p><p>Thane sighed, but said nothing.</p><p>“You can’t leave me on Kahje. After what’s just happened?”</p><p>“Kolyat,” Thane said, moving he and his son down towards the kitchen with his head nod, “you can’t come with me. Kahje is as far as I will take you.”</p><p>“But that’s in the Attican Traverse! There’s not even any Alliance out there.”</p><p>“Perhaps that is why Cerberus would like to meet there. The Alliance is not really an ally.”</p><p>“It’s pirate territory, Dad,” Kolyat hissed, his voice low. He leaned back. “Besides, I’m not going to Kahje. . . At least I’m not going to stay there without you.”</p><p>“Would you prefer Rakhana?”</p><p>“Dad!” Kolyat growled, almost ready to stomp his feet. “No. . . I’m sticking <em>with</em> you.”</p><p>Thane made a rumbling noise in his throat. He looked over at Garrus, who flared his lopsided mandibles and shook his horns.</p><p>“Don’t you look at me! I told you, Tali,” he looked, exasperated, at the Quarian climbing down from the loft, “I told you I’d get sidelined into babysitting. I knew it! I knew it!”</p><p>“Shut up,” Kolyat griped. “I’m a twenty-five year old Drell. No one’s babysitting anybody. . . Though for you, you look like you could use a suck-suck and a rattle.”</p><p>“Bastard.”</p><p>“That would be my father.”</p><p>“Kolyat.”</p><p>“Stop!” Tali cried, covering where her ears might be on the sides of her helmet. “We’re going where the ship lets us go. The Attican Traverse is far, and I’m supposed to go to my flotilla first, which means setting up a rendezvous with the Migrant Fleet. Which will also require fuel and a restored drive core. So, Joker, plot out the grid of refueling depots, and set our destination for where we’ll need to refuel and restock probably between now and, let’s say, the Perseus Veil. There’s usually a flotilla ship floating around out there.”</p><p>“Monitoring the Geth?”</p><p>Tali shrugged. “They are our property, cognizant or not of their ability to make a decision for themselves. . . What?”</p><p>Joker shook his head. “I thought the whole point with Geth was that they’re artificially intelligent and self-aware now. I mean, that <em>is</em> why the Geth fought back against their <em>Creators</em>, right?”</p><p>“Yes, but they weren’t supposed to.”</p><p>“So that doesn’t make it right to try and re-enslave them! Spying on them just outside the Perseus Veil? You Quarians are just a bunch of Peeping Toms if that’s actually what you’re doing!”</p><p>Tali’s lit bright eyes narrowed into slants at Joker in the cockpit. Her Quarian accent grew heavy and thick as she started to cuss him out. Garrus chuckled, holding his mandible in a claw.</p><p>“The point of the matter is,” Tali growled, “you take this ship to flotilla when I say you go, and plot in refuel stop with stock, understood, Mr. Smart Moreau?”</p><p>“Oh, I like it when she gets mad,” Joker laughed to himself, spinning around to face the front of the cockpit and to begin calculating her desired course. "It's like having a little tin can yell at me with sexy little fingers and a hot accent. Tali,” he called over his shoulder, not looking back at the irate Quarian, “let me know when the Creators get back to you with their flotilla location. . . But for now, I’m going to base my calculations on the best vantage point outside the Perseus Veil, where a Quarian can peep through a windshield with binoculars on binoculars to spy a little Geth booty.”</p><p>Tali released a VI drone from her Nexus and sent it up to the cockpit. There was a yelp a moment later, following a loud snap of an electrical charge. The VI drifted back to Tali, floating in its spinning arc, and de-crystallized above her arm.</p><p>“<em>That</em> is for being smart ass, Mr. Moreau.”</p>
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<a name="section0042"><h2>42. Chapter 42</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thane found another bandage to replace over Lana’s wound. The hole in her flesh was looking angry and felt hot to his touch.</p><p>“She is going to need medical attention soon,” Tali said, looking up from her omnitool at Thane’s worried face. “The polonium requires something to destabilize it, but I don’t have the supplies that I need even with the stock we picked up.”</p><p>He felt her forehead, Lana winching down her brow at the cool touch of his skin. And Thane even had a warmer temperature than she as a Human normally did. He scooted Tali away on the bench in the lobby and slid his hands under Lana to bring her to a lift that would ride them to the upper cabin. They hadn’t used it yet, he and Lana and Tali preferring to climb and exert themselves whenever they could. Exercise in space was promising, but hard to do with limited room and a lack of facilities. Thane himself had been trained rigorously all his life with land equipment and training zones that taxed him physically, mentally, and provided a phenom of physique with the amount of stress he subjected himself to. While on board the Villetta, however, he had occupied himself with balance work, finger exercises and toe drills, slow and fast maneuvers with his limbs in the open bottom deck beneath the cockpit.</p><p>Lana moaned at the soft, cool touch of the bedsheets in Will’s former cabin. Thane moved the picture of she and her son closer to the edge of the desk so that if she opened her eyes, she would see herself with the little boy that unfortunately possessed much of William Clarke’s features save for his eye color, which was green like Lana’s. For a time, Thane sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing her cheek as he gazed between her and the picture, wondering what David was like and if he would get along with Kolyat were he older than just two. Thane grinned at his musing over the future with Lana and her son. <em>Surprise for an old assassin to be considering settling down again, but with a Human woman and her child. In addition, Kolyat.</em> He wondered if he would ever tell Lana about Irikah, and supposed that when the time was right, he may, with Kolyat’s permission. . . Though he had heard from Garrus and Dae that Lana probably knew enough that he wouldn’t surprise her.</p><p>“Lana,” he said, feeling her stir and put her hand on his waist, a squeeze of fingers to assure herself he was real.</p><p>“Hey. . .” she whispered, her voice hoarse and dry.</p><p>Thane went downstairs immediately and retrieved a glass of water, checking briefly to see his son, Garrus, and Tali all either occupied or sleeping while Joker did whatever he did in the cockpit. The gangly Human was doing well with them, and there was no doubting him anymore, not after his denial of William Clarke’s demand that he open the Villetta to let Thane and the others to their misfortunes or even deaths. Joker looked up from his side console and nodded, a sign of respect to the Drell, and Thane nodded in return before climbing up the ladder, having placed the cup of water on a flat rung at the top.</p><p>Back in the cabin, Thane found Lana presently gone to sleep, and took up his thinking spot by her side. And once again, he felt her fingers, touching his arm, hotter than his own skin.</p><p>“Thane,” she whispered, taking the cup he offered her, and helping to hold it to her lips so she may sip, Lana took a drink, and another, before she resumed with what she wanted to say. “If something should happen to me, please watch over David for me. . . I know you don’t know me, not well at least. . . But I really don’t have any others.” Her voice grew tight, whether by dryness or strain, and Thane knew the latter because she began to cry. She felt so hot, and looked so pale despite the color of her skin. He kissed her brow and smoothed her hair affectionately, thinking how odd it was to be touching someone with such moveable parts like hair such as hers.</p><p>“Lana, I said I would watch over you and those you love. I will assure you, you will live through this and see David again. . . Perhaps we should. . . Put you in the shower to help with your fever.”</p><p>“Thane. . . Please say you’ll watch over him.” Her green eyes pleaded.</p><p>Thane nodded.</p><p>As though this reinvigorated her, Lana pushed up on the bed, winced at the strain on her wound, and paused when she saw the picture of her and David. She looked at Thane, and he smiled. She knew he had moved it.</p><p>“Hey, hey, hey,” Joker said, turning in his pilot chair. He stood with a gingerly step, moving to offer Lana his hand as she came down the lift with Thane beside her. She refused to be carried, and would have taken the ladder had Thane not insisted she take it easy on her injury. Joker held her hand as she stepped down from the rise of the lift. “Lady, seriously? You’re making me get up and I have Vrolik Syndrome. Why don’t you stay in bed? Didn’t Thane just carry you up there?”</p><p>Lana smiled and pushed his arm gently away as she turned and walked tentatively down the ramp towards the showers. Thane and Joker looked at each other, the Human shaking his head.</p><p>“You better go with her in case she slips.” Joker made a face, thinking of what could possibly happen with the two alone in the showers together, now that they had consummated their relationship. “I would probably advise that you <em>not</em> have sex in the shower. Please. If you just. . . Accommodate that kind of. . . Request. . . Damn it, don’t have sex in the shower,” he said then adamantly, hobbling back to his seat.</p><p>Thane chortled at the pilot’s directness and went after Lana. He had no intention of causing her further discomfort.</p><p>Alone, however, undressing her, feeling aroused, putting some plastic bag over the bandage and wrapping it further with a towel, Thane was undressed and in the shower with her, helping to clean and suds Lana up. Despite her wound, she allowed herself to lay back her head against his tebris, and pulled his hands up to fondle her chest. Amidst the spray and heat, which had started lukewarm, she could hear the steady thrum coming from his body and his lungs. It was sensual, different, like listening to a very big animal with a very big drum inside his chest, lightly, rapidly, nearly seamless in its incessant percolation. She almost fell asleep as he mouthed her ear and held her breasts in the shower, hard on strong and firm against her. The hot water should have relaxed him, but he was throbbing, and flexing between her flesh, the towel wet, heavy, he pressed against her, held her tight to him, so that the towel would not fall. Not that it mattered.</p><p>Lana turned into him, hair wet and dark between her shoulders, and Thane accepted her lips against his, tongues probing each other in that heat and comfort of caress.</p><p>“Take me, Thane.”</p><p>“You’re injured,” he protested, yet indifferent were his hands as he cupped her mouth and rolled their tongues into a deeper kiss.</p><p>Lana paid closer attention to his venom, admiring the spice of it, the zing and pop it brought to her eyes. She grunted as he pushed her gently back against the shell wall of the shower, minuscule beads forming on his skin. And she felt his scales, fine and small like little diamond shaped, interconnected parts flush with the surface of his chest, shoulders, and thighs. She had the desire to go down on him, to see what he was like, but maybe that was just the venom talking and loosening her up with a tantric high.</p><p>Lapping the water off her neck, letting it pool where her clavicles joined at the base of her throat, he bit at the bone just enough to indent the flesh, uttering a sigh from her mouth that she quickly recovered so as not to alert anyone to their tryst.</p><p>“Lana, let me make love to you,” he murmured in her ear, taking up her left leg and avoiding the right. He turned off the shower and slid into her, not wanting to waste water that the ship had to recycle through two cylinders down below deck. “Lana. . .”</p><p>She winced a little as he took her, but not because he hurt. The bandage was heavy with the towel.</p><p>They stopped, kneading brows against each other while her left leg lowered and he removed himself.</p><p>“Maybe now is not the time,” he sighed.</p><p>Lana stifled a groan and pet his patak on his face, flicking his lip with a fingernail. He grabbed her lip with his teeth and sucked, firm, squeezing her shoulders to him and not her waist. They held each other longer, just taking up the other’s presence, and Lana thought to herself how right he felt, Thane thinking the same of her.</p>
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<a name="section0043"><h2>43. Chapter 43</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Alana, I want you to tell me where it hurts.”</p><p>She cried out and slapped the doctor away.</p><p>“God damn it, right there, you asshole! Seriously,” she scowled at Thane, “did you really have to bring me to Omega?”</p><p>They had gone farther than the Perseus Veil evidently, Lana’s sickness from the radiation poisoning warranting a stop first in Noveria, but the snow port turned them away. Lacking credentials or personal funding in the millions, they were destitute compared to what Port Hanshan’s corrupt administrator had wanted, and when Rannadril Ghan Swa Fulsoom Karaten Narr Eadi Bel Anoleis, the Salarian bastard who was asking for an arm and a leg in bribe or blackmail, Thane and Garrus had rolled their eyes, re-boarded the Villetta, managed to refuel at a depot one moon over, and went onto the only other place they could rightly think with certain service to be offered to their wounded commander. Tali was in no good mood either, having been offended by an insulting Port Hanshan security officer, a Human with whitish blond hair whom she would never forget. But Kolyat had soundly tongue lashed the woman named Kaira Stirling of Elanus Risk Control Services.</p><p>“She called me a hoodrat,” Tali complained painfully, still going on about the offense.</p><p>Lana stopped long enough from her grimacing as the doctor in the slum clinic treated her with a syringe full of antibiotics and held a cotton swab over the insertion point as he removed the needle.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Tali. I wish I’d been there to correct her.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Tali sighed, shaking her head, “Kolyat said something on my part. Made her shut right up and look fit to shoot him.” She swung her gaze to Kolyat, looking a little bigger in the chest. He smiled back at her, then looked to Lana.</p><p>“Dare I ask what you said to her?”</p><p>Kolyat made to answer, relishing an opportunity to make himself appreciated by the commander, but Thane cut in.</p><p>“It would probably be best not to repeat in front of current company,” he said, glancing at the door that lay open, a small family of bedraggled looking Humans with two daughters, no more than six and seven. Thane returned his gaze to Lana, while Kolyat slightly simmered.</p><p> </p><p>“He never gives me a chance to talk to her,” Kolyat grumbled to Garrus as they paid for Lana’s care and prepared to leave the clinic. Lana was bent slightly to talk to the young girls, smiling at their innocence and sweet expressions as they answered her questions below the nervous yet grateful looking couple, a man and woman with graying hair at their temples. They were far too young to have gray hairs, but life, having to be lived out on Omega, was a terrible duress on young couples and their blooming families.</p><p>Lana shook the hand of the youngest daughter and was about to shake the hand of the other in play when the mother hissed, “They are sick, ma’am. Go wash your hands. It’s a plague down in the lower streets. We are here to make sure they get their medicine.”</p><p>Lana hesitated, and looked at Thane, who grew very concerned and nodded towards a sink nearby.</p><p>“Lana, go wash you hands,”</p><p><em>I will not</em>, she mouthed at him, <em>not in front of them.</em></p><p>“It was nice to meet you,” Lana said, taking care to hold her hands together and act nonchalant about what the parents were thinking, what Thane was dreading, and what Lana refused to make a big scene over and embarrassing the poor girls. When the doctor called them in, only then did Lana go to the sink, and dejectedly, she washed her hands with soap and water.</p><p>“You need to be careful, Lana,” Thane warned her, holding her waist.</p><p>“I only shook their hands. They were such sweet things,” she whispered, glancing up and behind her to the clinic room. The door was closed this time, and she thought of David and what it would be like to live without the assurance of William’s wealth. She hoped she would never have to worry about him catching sick. But there were far more troubling things as well that she was out to prevent from reaching him.</p><p>As they went out the door of the clinic, Lana felt her ears ring. She pushed it off to superstition, but she had the feeling that someone, somewhere, was watching her.</p><p>Thane and Kolyat were ahead of her as Garrus had dropped back to guide Lana. She was turning her head about, focusing on one thing or the other, when what to her surprise should appear a fellow in gray trench and brown leather with blue eyes and startlingly colorful skin.</p><p>“Holy shit!” Lana flinched and jumped back, cursing as she tweaked the injury to her side.</p><p>Thane and Kolyat turned just as Garrus emitted a controlled growl and caught the cuff of the stranger’s trench in his claws.</p><p>“Hey, take it easy!” said the man. . . Drell, Lana realized, oddly fascinated with the vibrancy of his skin. It was muted in some light while in others it was iridescent. The blue eyes looking back at her ignored the Turian’s with his claws on his collar, holding him away from Lana.</p><p>“Feron,” Thane said, pushing down Garrus’s arms after a firm detachment from the new Drell’s garb.</p><p>He that was identified as Feron huffed and gave Garrus a look of disapproval, but his eyes came back to Lana, who was back in her regular dark clothes, albeit cleaned after figuring out how to use the dishwasher on the Villetta. He huffed and smiled, obviously pleased with what Thane had found.</p><p>“You didn’t mention she was this good to smell,” Feron said, overstepping the bounds of personal space and picking up Lana’s hand for a brief kiss on the back of it.</p><p>She felt the strength in his grip, tentative and held at bay. She pulled her hand away and looked curiously at Thane.</p><p>“Lana, Garrus, Kolyat. . . This is Feron. He once worked with me at the Illuminated Primacy’s branch of defense. He is a consummate Drell. . . Beware,” he added to them, with a keen look at Lana.</p><p>“They say consummate Drell make excellent lovers,” Feron purred at the Human commander, giving her another look of approval.</p><p>Lana backed up, not sure what to make of him, or why he had come directly at her. “Koshi. . .”</p><p>Feron looked at Thane. “Still going with that old cover?”</p><p>Lana looked puzzled. Thane sighed.</p><p>“You needn’t use my name,” he murmured as he moved closer to her ear, placing his hand on her lower back, one in front of her stomach, and physically moving her away from the encroaching Drell. “You will need to respect space, Feron,” Thane informed him.</p><p>“Sorry. When I saw you,” he said, looking at the green and black face, “I thought I’d surprise you. . . But then I saw her, and I thought, Maybe Thane can wait.” He smiled broadly at Lana, who raised her eyebrows and went ahead to walk alongside Kolyat. Garrus gave a huff of breath at Feron and stalked off close behind Lana. Thane and Feron fell into pace behind them.</p><p>“So why are you here, and without a certain small child as I requested and that you said you would comply with the procurement of?”</p><p>“There was a shitload of security on the client, Thane,” Feron said, “and I don’t got the skill to take out mass guns and firepower. Those coordinates you sent me are to a high profile facility in the government wing of Arcturus Station. There is one way I’m getting in there, but getting out with a kid who has 24/7 guards escorting his toys around even is damn near impossible. Now, if you want, you can come with me, and we can do it together. But that would isolate you from that,” he said, indicating Lana up ahead with Kolyat by her side and Garrus moving left.</p><p>“When did you go?”</p><p>“Past two days.”</p><p>“Did you happen to see anyone resembling the child? Blond hair? Tall?”</p><p>“No. Why?”</p><p>“That would be the father. William Clarke. He’s a man of multiple roles at the Alliance. Lana’s former husband.” He nodded at her. Lana cast a look over her shoulders, Kolyat paying attention and looking as well. Garrus, too.</p><p>“I’m sorry if I surprised you guys,” Feron went on, stroking something behind the lip of his coat, “but I figured I’d track your omnitool and meet up to deliver the news personally. Besides,” he added with a wink of orange and red eyelids, “I wanted to see just how interesting this woman was to you. . . I can see she’s worth the amount you’re spending on her, if not more.”</p><p>Thane frowned. “You better not be hacking my expense accounts, Feron. That is a breach of privacy.”</p><p>“Illusive Man doesn’t seem to think so. What’s yours is his,” he grinned.</p><p>Thane stopped and looked Feron dead on. “So can you extract the child only with my help? Or is there another?”</p><p>“I can do it,” Feron replied, wheedling a look of relief out of Thane with his constant jibing and teasing. “But do you still want the drop-off to be on Kahje at the way point?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Feron sighed and shrugged the thick pads on his shoulders. “Okay. You got it.”</p><p>He slipped away into the crowd, becoming innocuous and finally disappearing. Thane caught up to Lana, who was engaged in a lively discussion of wares with Kolyat, intent on showing her how much he could share about the particulars in an Omegan window shop.</p><p>“Check this out.” Kolyat pulled down what appeared to be some magazine with a Hanar spread provocatively over the front page. Lana and he, even Garrus who shared a chuckle, started to laugh. Kolyat put his arm around Lana to reach for another magazine from the FORNAX stock, and stole a whiff of her scent. “We buy this for Joker, you’ll see, he’ll either flip his shit, or be positively intrigued. Bet you he only watches the Human vids. And Asari.”</p><p>“We are not bringing this crap onto my ship,” she said, pushing the magazines back in his hands and wincing suddenly from over-stretching her injury. Kolyat placed his hands about her waist, helping to protect her by supporting her with his touch. Garrus growled before Thane could intervene.</p><p>“Easy,” Kolyat said, glaring at the Turian. “I was being a gentleman. I’m not doing anything wrong.”</p><p>“Says he, despite his pheromones.”</p><p>“Enough,” Thane said, putting the FORNAX mags back into their holders. He nodded to Kolyat and Lana. “Let’s head back to the Villetta.”</p><p>He glanced at Lana and tilted his head, indicating she should walk beside him, and Lana moved forward a little quicker to catch pace with her man.</p><p>“My apologies for Feron’s behavior. He is quite remarkable in that he does not register when too close is <em>far</em> too close for one’s comfort.”</p><p>“He did seem very friendly,” Lana replied, casting a glance behind her at Kolyat and Garrus. <em>Glad to see those two getting along better.</em> She looked at Thane, who tilted his head forward and kissed her cheek, unexpectedly. Lana blushed, rubbing her hair up the back of her nape, smiling back at him.</p><p>“Ugh,” Garrus grunted. “Would you two <em>stop</em>?”</p><p>“Yeah, seriously,” Kolyat frowned, giving his father a look that said to knock it off, if at least in front of him.</p><p>“Do you feel better, now that you’ve been treated with the antibiotics and reversal drugs?” he asked, ignoring the others.</p><p>Lana looped her arm in his elbow. “I do. Amazingly so. . . Did Tali mention where she was going after the clinic?”</p><p>“She seemed adamant about checking the shops closer to Afterlife, that big party central,” Thane said, admitting to himself he wouldn’t mind taking Lana for a dance or two. Just not on Omega. Even if the music was nice. There was too much drinking, drugs, thugs, and danger for those who were unwary. He did begin to wonder if maybe he should have pressed harder to convince Tali to not separate, but she was quiet certain about going off by herself. <em>Something important</em>, he thought. <em>Or that she wishes to keep secret.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0044"><h2>44. Chapter 44</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tali approached the shop in the corner at the bottom of the ramp and stared through her visor at the young white and green silked Quarian vending wares from his store. He was busy updating an old, sterile looking catalogue kiosk and didn’t notice her nearness.</p><p>“I thought it was you, Kenn,” Tali said, startling the dirty looking Quarian so that he jumped. “What are you doing here?” she asked, spellbound by how filthy he was even compared to her enviro suit and its silks.</p><p>“Tali? Tali’Zorah? Is it really you?” he asked, voice uncertain.</p><p>“Yes, Kenn. It’s me. Rael’s daughter. You obviously remember me.” She held out her arms and took the Quarian in for an impromptu hug despite his uncleanliness, but he was in Omega, so what could he be if not dirty all the time? “What are you doing on Omega of all places?”</p><p>“I’m on pilgrimage.”</p><p>“That’s what I assumed.”</p><p>Kenn’s hand went behind his head in a self-conscious reach. “I lost my credits in a card game, thinking I could double my money with a VI that I bought and was testing, but the guys I was cheating called it out and took all I had.”</p><p>“Oh, Kenn,” Tali said, shaking her head back and forth.</p><p>Kenn sighed. “I know, I know. . . So I was kind of in a jam and signed a contract with this Elcor named Harrod who works out of a shop on the next level. He has a nice corner. I have to overcharge my supplies and salvage I find to sell down here at this cart, and if customers ask for something cheaper, I just send them up to Harrod who charges less for everything up there. It’s a scheme, I know, but he gives me, what, ten percent of what I make for him down here at this kiosk. So I’m saving up, but I still have to find something helpful to bring back to the flotilla. Standing around waiting for things to come in and be pawned or scavenging during my off hour is. . . Well, it’s probably easier than I make it sound. . . Or not.”</p><p>Tali could only shake her head again and look down at the scrap he had available for selling in his salvage post.<em> Lana would be appalled</em>, she thought. “Who is this Harrod? Maybe I can go find him and talk to him for you. Convince him to raise your earnings. I think you could go back to the Flotilla with this story to tell, Kenn, although the VI you discovered. . . Where is it?”</p><p>“I still have it in my omnitool. It’s a little old and needs some updates, but I could definitely improve it and make it less detectable in gambling.”</p><p>“Kenn,” Tali narrowed her glowing eyes, “you could think of something else less troublesome for you. And others for the matter.” She straightened and dropped her hands from her hips. “Let’s see. . . I think I know which shop you are talking about. The one of Harrod’s. I go there now. You sit tight.”</p><p>“I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>Tali hesitated, blushed inside her visor, and went back up the ramp thinking about Harrod and Kenn’s predicament. At the top, she went right, and wound about a diamond island with cool air blasting up from the level below, the sound of Vorcha, Krogan, voices of many, and the whir of constantly spinning fans. There were things breaking, many-many footsteps, people coughing and some hacking. Her filters processed out the bad air, but even Tali could smell the rancidness of Omega. That Kenn had ended up of all places here made her chest pang. She reasoned she could appeal to Harrod’s better sense of morality and help a fellow Quarian from her fleet improve his conditions of pilgrimage. The Quarian hopefully had learned his lesson.</p><p> </p><p>“And why, offended, would I ever consider doing that?” the Elcor stated with a steady thrum from his bulky sides.</p><p>Tali stared up at the brutish face of perpendicular lips vibrating with each word. The Elcor were immensely strong, and big, often possessing a darkened skin, beady eyes yet shrewd, and their nostrils were not evident in the manner of the typical Quarian face, which was on their nose, but on their palms. The Elcor walked on their knuckles, which could pack a mighty slug, and to protect the nostrils, they had meaty flaps of skin on the palms that pulled back for much ruder inquisition. Though naturally the Elcor were tribally warlike and cunning on their planet of Dekuuna, adapting to the Council species and their attractive modes of trade and valuables, the Elcor had shown they were also an accommodating species with thoughtful minds and forward thinking.They often, too, made those they spoke with aware of their underlying feelings throughout their sentence formulation, and the Elcor were seen as an agreeable friend to the Council. However, not all Elcor were the same or as politely inclined towards entertaining the ideas of nuisance species, such as how they felt of Quarians, who often salvaged and mined around the Elcoran homeworld for useful ore and resources such as Element Zero, known to often imbue dark energy into organic tissue as well as power drive cores, and highly volatile.</p><p>The Elcor tilted his large, flat-faced head towards Tali with the contraction of hidden neck muscles between the shoulders and skull, which were very much aligned to seem as though no neck existed at all.</p><p>“Kenn is my friend. He made a mistake. He is trying to go home,” Tali said, not letting the Elcor intimidate her. A Krogan walked by, brushing something off his armor. “You only give him so much of his score down there,” she pointed to the floor, indicating Kenn the next level below, “and it is not enough to let him make any gain on his profits. He probably barely cuts even with what you have him allowed to take from you. . . And how much do you think you earn up here what with his filtering all of the customers to you for the better salvage pieces and blown out prices? I mean, look at this,” she said, picking up a pot, “this is fifteen hundred credits, but down there, how much you make him charge for it? Two thousand? That’s just silly. That’s just unfair. You’re robbing him and making him work for you at the same time! I should call the police on you. Or report you to a governing board for abuse of employees and contracts!”</p><p>“Snide, you are on Omega. There is no law besides Aria, and Aria doesn’t care so long as no one bothers her and her employees.” He turned his bulk and looked to the doorway. “Kenn. . . What are you doing up here, concerned?”</p><p>“I came up to speak for myself,” Kenn said, looking through his filmy visor at Tali standing beside the Elcor, Harrod. He looked back at him. “I would like a raise, sir. I cannot make any money with the amount I’m making between you and my overhead. Would you please consider, sir, giving me an increase in my cut? I would like to leave Omega one day and. . . Go home.”</p><p>“Your home is just, scathing, a junkship in the sky. It is no better than Omega. At least, condescending, Aria can mine the asteroid and provide fresh air.”</p><p>“Somehow I think I disagree with you,” Tali muttered off to the side. She folded her arms and studied the Elcor. What would make a rock move? “Did you say someone’s name was Aria?”</p><p>The Elcor and Kenn both flinched at the name and looked at Tali standing small and diminutive.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0045"><h2>45. Chapter 45</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Where is Tali?” Lana asked Joker. “Can you pull up her locator on the Villetta for me, Joker?”</p><p>“She’s definitely still on the rock. I have an indicator at the coordinates which would take you closer to the top. Looks like she managed to climb up a few levels and can be found in the bigger of the entertainment venues. . . Afterlife, it says here.”</p><p>Thane and Garrus looked at each other.</p><p>“Send me the ping and I’ll go get her,” Lana said, tapping Kolyat’s shoulder and nodding. He was looking at several guns on display in a shop, noticing right away that the serial numbers were filed off and that the weapons were being sold in the open, clear as day. He looked at the shop owner, a Batarian with an evil eye, or four, staring back at him.</p><p>“You don’t like what I got, don’t look,” the Batarian said in a deep, throaty voice that seemed to resonate out through the nostrils as well as his ears.</p><p>“You have stolen goods on your window shop counter. I just happened to notice how flagrant you are with your stupidity.”</p><p>The Batarian growled and Kolyat was right up with him as he came around the corner of his table glass. They started pushing and Thane stepped in between, Garrus taking Kolyat off while Thane slammed the Batarian into the counter. He whispered something into the Batarian’s carved ear orifice, thick with wax and fur, and let the Alien up as he took a step back and went to Lana.</p><p>“What did you say to him?” she asked, looking away from Kolyat’s angry face to Thane’s cool expression.</p><p>“I told him if he doesn’t mind restoring his wares to the original owners, I won’t have to come back and kill him.” He smiled at her. Lana raised her eyebrows.</p><p>“Must be nice to know how to kill someone seven ways to heaven. . . Or Hell.”</p><p>He gave her shoulder a squeeze and showed her the way to Afterlife. They would have to go up four levels to the upper ring of the husk of asteroid left over from mining and previous collisions with neighboring asteroids and debris floating among the Terminus systems, but new technology to date repelled any future threats, present, and past, at least for some odd number of decades, while Omega became the home that it was to descendants of miners, mercenaries, the uncouth, and ex vets who enjoyed a little too much vice and lawlessness to feel comfortable anywhere else.</p><p> </p><p>“Who are you?” the Batarian asked the small Quarian standing at the bottom of the steps to the upper level of Afterlife. He appraised the nice silks and plastic covering of her body, which was appealing to him in that she was thin and eye drawing. He leered a little, thinking what benefit he could get out of abducting a Quarian with a nice looking body, custom suit, and what apparently was a very expensive omnitool on her arm.</p><p>“My name is Tali. I hear this is where Aria T’Loak can be found for audience.”</p><p>The Batarian frowned and straightened a little taller. He shifted a thick rifle strap on his left shoulder cutting down to his right hip, and appraised the Quarian’s boldness at speaking for the whereabouts of his superior governess. The bitch of Omega.</p><p>“She’s not here. What do you want?”</p><p>“I want to speak with her about undue business practices as applied by one so-called Harrod. He is an Elcor abusing my friend’s service. With whom can I speak in Aria’s absence?”</p><p>“Anto,” a highly distinct and feminine voice with the crack of a whip shot out from above, “who are you talking to?”</p><p>Tali almost cringed at the lash of the woman’s demand. The voice was quite powerful and annoyed. Anto, the Batarian, turned and looked up, calling to the upper deck above the dance hall and bars of the bottom of Afterlife.</p><p>“Just a Quarian, Aria. Want me to send her away? Nothing important.”</p><p>“That remains to be <em>my</em> decision,” the voice condescended from above.</p><p>Tali trembled a little in her suit, wondering if maybe threatening Harrod by coming to seek Aria herself was going too far. She didn’t know how Omega operated, despite Kenn’s insistence that she not go bother the “Queen.” But Tali had chocked it up to Kenn lacking a backbone in that enviro suit of his, and was determined even more when she heard Harrod start to laugh in his reverberating voice. He didn’t think she would actually go to the Afterlife to seek Aria’s empathetic ear. Tali certainly understood that Aria had an ear, having heard her and Anto through the noise of the club atmosphere all around them, pumping in even her suit’s fluids throughout the system. As for empathetic. . . Tali was hesitating with that regard.</p><p>“Send her up.”</p><p>Tali and Anto both looked up into the face of a very amused looking Asari with the brow between her eyes painted a small thin arc of makeup. She had an elegant face, if but a bit hard drawn, and the eyes looked nowhere near empathetic or compassionate. Tali knew she’d made a mistake.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0046"><h2>46. Chapter 46</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Afterlife made Lana’s jaw drop. There was nothing but bare flesh, broken glass being swept up even while folks still danced. Krogan mingled in the dark corners under the flashing red glare of posted replay of various dancers that had performed on the stage high above the middle of the large circular floor. There were three entrances or exits, she, Thane, Kolyat and Garrus having come from the main. There had been some pushback by the Krogan bouncer at the door, but once he learned who Lana was, miraculously, the ribbon gate was opened. The Krogan made an announcement in his com on his body armor’s collar and led them up the first few steps before they took to the doors and let themselves in the rest of the way. Lana garnered much attention, what with her face and hair, a trio of Batarians watching her with twelve eyes and sour grins. Thane, Garrus, and Kolyat formed protectively around her, knowing how bad it was to have a Human walking loose in the Terminus, regardless of where they were. This was sacred ground, in so many ways, Omega, but people, especially Humans, often were preyed on and went missing. It was a slaver’s lair. And a Human as fetching as Lana Shephard, not to mention her infamy, was quite an attraction. And the bounty for her head was not quite formally spread yet, at least not by official channels.</p><p>Lana stopped by a counter and looked about. There was a large balcony, open faced, above the far exit and entrance to the club. Dancers dressed the sides, where behind them she could see what appeared to be a lounge. She wondered what big wigs would be up there. Maybe some athletes, or some thugs in a mob. Perhaps some stars like musicians or models or actors and actresses. . . Something told her that despite the club atmosphere, the audience being held up there by the dancers would be less than the starlit sort.</p><p>“That is Aria’s office,” Thane remarked, watching Lana as she stared at the balcony.</p><p>“Aria T’Loak? The one you were telling me about on the way here?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Great to know,” she sighed, turning and looking around more, trying to avoid staring at the openness of flesh, blue, purple, warm in the red lighting and chilling in the pink. She swallowed, suddenly nervous as Thane continued to watch her attempting to not notice how uncomfortable she felt to have walked so readily into a club meant for stripping, boozing, and drugs. She was a mother. Not a dancer. She was a marine, and yet she had redness around her ears and neck. Thane could almost see the change of color between the brighter white flashes of light, and he thought. . . <em>How alluring. . .</em></p><p>“How are you so chaste after what I’ve seen,” he whispered low enough to not be heard by his son or Garrus, but above the pitch of the music, into Lana’s ear.</p><p>She flushed more broadly. “I don’t like strip clubs. And I will never understand how women can stand so naked and vulnerable in front of so many men and strangers even. I mean, not that I spend my time naked in front of a lot of men. . . I mean, well, when I was a soldier, I mean, I am. . . Was. . . There were communal showers, but that was when and <em>only</em> when things were that bad. . . But that wasn’t even rare. . . Often, I mean. . . Oh, damn it, this is uncomfortable. . .”</p><p>She rubbed her neck as if she were getting a rash. Thane chuckled and glanced at Kolyat, who was keeping his eyes to the bar and trying to ignore the urge to ogle. Garrus, however, seemed as completely indifferent as Thane.</p><p>“These newbies are blushing, Koshisigre,” Garrus rumbled, amused as he scanned about, looking for Tali and her head dress. “Buy them a drink, chill them out. I’m going to have a word with Aria.”</p><p>“Is that wise?” Kolyat asked, looking up.</p><p>Garrus chuffed and shrugged his arms forward. His mandible lifted a little higher, having regained some of its strength after healing for the past week. He glanced at Thane. “She knows me.”</p><p>Thane nodded and watched with Lana as Garrus moved off alone, passing easily between Krogan, Humans, Turians, and Batarians. Lana saw none of the Vorcha she had witnessed below in the lower levels on their way up to Afterlife. She was relieved. The Vorcha looked terrible. Hideous even. And the uglier they were, the more attractive they found each other. They had musculoskeletal fiber running sinuously on the exterior of their bodies, and fangs that gave one nightmares, not too mention a stench. They often hung their tongues out like dogs panting at her, and the cartilage on their heads had what Lana assumed were brittle thorns. They could have been some god’s idea of a mutilated triceratopsian corpse on two legs with hunched shoulders, fangs, and claws, and they wore loin cloths or pants, depending on what they had in their possession, which looked like nothing more than whatever weapons they could get their claws on.</p><p>“Let’s hope we find Tali soon,” she said, catching the look of a Krogan leaning against a far bar counter, eyeing her. He had red eyes, a scar on his left one and lip, running through the top of his plate and down his face. He was yellowish of countenance, but in the lights, he bore a red flame of shining scale across the head plate of his massive crest. He was probably the bigger of the Krogan milling about, casting dirty looks at anything and everyone who crossed their visual paths. Lana looked warily away, but glanced back again to see if he was still staring at her. And he was.</p><p>“There’s a Krogan across the bar, red flame on his skull, heavy armor,” she murmured with her back turned to the subject.</p><p>Kolyat and Thane both looked. Lana groaned.</p><p>“You’re not supposed to look!” she hissed uncomfortably. “I was trying not to be obvious that he’d been noticed!”</p><p>Kolyat chuckled. “That’s just Wrex. I’ve seen him at the Citadel making arrests or bringing in bounties. You would be more hard pressed by a certain vigilante Turian than Wrex. He’s actually not bad.”</p><p>“You do realize we probably have bounties on our heads,” she informed him bitterly. Lana clasped her knuckles and ordered a drink from the Salarian barkeep.</p><p>Thane hummed as well. He leaned towards Lana. “Have you entertained the notion that William Clarke might not want to advertise your value if he wants you dead for Project Foundation? Maybe he would prefer to find you instead? Why else would he leave David and come to the Citadel if that weren’t where he assumed, and correctly so, you would go first?”</p><p>“It’s plausible,” she whispered, “but I doubt he would put aside the idea of making me more <em>hard pressed</em> by placing an attractive quantity on my head. And yours. And yours,” she said, nodding to Kolyat. “And his, and. . . Oh my God. Is that Tali?”</p><p>Looking to where Garrus was storming up alongside a Batarian with his hooked arm around Tali’s neck and a shotgun to her lower headpiece, Thane, Kolyat, and Lana tensed just as the barkeep placed a glass of liquor onto the counter per Lana’s request. The Salarian leaned forward and said, “Don’t worry about the charge. The drink is on the house. Courtesy of Miss T’Loak.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0047"><h2>47. Chapter 47</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana’s dark energy ebbed when Garrus shook his horns at her.</p><p>“We need to go meet with Aria, thanks to this little Quarian friend of yours.”</p><p>She pushed his shoulder. “She’s your friend, too.” Looking sharply at Tali, her bright purple eyes wide and frightened, Lana snarled at the Batarian. “Nice way to greet strangers. Take that gun off her before I take it from you.”</p><p>The Batarian grinned, white fanged teeth glimpsing out at her. “As long as you give her majesty an audience, I won’t have to gun this sweet little suitrat of yours.”</p><p>“Call her suitrat again, I’ll break those teeth of <em>yours</em>. How’s that? Now show me to where her ‘queenship’ is so I can give her a taste of my worship.”</p><p>Lana lowered her glare from the top two eyes of the Batarian to the bottom row, her own greens wide and wrathful. She didn’t feel the ring in her ears or the tingle along her scars, but Aria T’Loak was watching Lana from the upper tier of the club.</p><p>Lana took Tali, as she was offered to her by the Batarian, Anto, and pushed her behind, walking forward with her shoulders bunched with kinetic tension. Garrus and Thane, with Kolyat and Tali started to follow, but Anto shook his head. Three armed guards emerged at a turn, aiming their weapons at Lana. Even the barkeep was keeping a shotgun pointed at Garrus’s back.</p><p>“Nice way to introduce the guests to your hospitality,” Garrus snarled, raising his claws to over his head.</p><p>“Put them up,” Anto said, searching Lana, who flinched as he cuffed her waist and slid his hand over her thigh. She leveled him with a glare that if looks could kill. . .</p><p>“Only you. Bring the Quarian and the others to the pit,” Anto instructed his men, who began prodding Thane, Tali, Kolyat and Garrus to one of the two adjacent exits.</p><p>Lana watched as Garrus snarled at the Batarian jabbing his back.</p><p>“Let’s go, Shephard.” She looked at Anto, gleaming down at her with a mean, ugly leer. “Aria’s excited to meet you. I can tell. She’s been bored lately. When she saw you come in with those Drell and Garrus, and the stupid Turian went upstairs and recognized the Quarian, she put two and two together. You can thank your little Quarian friend and that big brute of a Turian for getting you noticed and apprehended.”</p><p>“Fuck you,” she said, as he groped her behind, Lana moving up the steps and ignoring the dancers staring at her, moving apart, and turning at the top of the stairs to enter the flow of the balcony, found a very austere and purple Asari dressed in tight black pants cut out with straps leading up over her breasts, hiding these but revealing the curves of skin beneath a white long sleeved top with the front wide open. She nodded to Anto and stood, strutting over to Lana and circling the woman like a snake coiling tighter around its desired prey.</p><p>“So this is the great Lana Clarke.”</p><p>“Shephard,” Lana bit out through her teeth, “Lana Shephard. . . I’m divorced.”</p><p>“And so you are, I heard.” The Asari introduced herself, pulling back Lana’s hair with a violet finger exposed through knuckle cut gloves, “Aria. . . Queen of Omega. . . And no small bitch,” she said, letting the ‘tch’ sound be sharp and linger in Lana’s ear. Anto chuckled. “. . . To piss off.” She pushed Lana down into a chair and took up the one brought over by her henchmen and dropped across from Lana. Crossing her long legs with black heels in front of her, Aria teased her lip with a nail, appraising the commander sitting stiff and uncomfortable in a plush leather chair. “You don’t like my hospitality, Lana Shephard?”</p><p>“It’s a little coarse,” she admitted, not certain how to broach conversation with an Asari that <em>was</em> an attitude and had her friends God knew where.</p><p>“What are you doing here. . . Shephard? You causing me trouble coming to my neck of the galaxy. What makes you think you can just dock and walk into my slums without asking for my permission first?”</p><p>“I didn’t see any signs posted.”</p><p>“You’re not from around here. Hell, you’re not even from this part of the galaxy. And yet you think you can just ignore customs and dick around in my stores and send in your Quarian to harass my people over whether or not an employee is getting his fair wage?”</p><p>Lana frowned, looking up at Anto.</p><p>“Don’t look at him. Look at me, Shephard. My men only follow my orders. They don’t make decisions on their own. You want to beg for your life, you beg me. Are we clear?”</p><p>“Listen, lady, I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I can deal death as well as I can take it. You have a problem with me, fine, but let go of the others. You need someone to sit here and listen to you talk, I can do that, but I don’t have all day. And as for employees, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. So if you have something relevant to me that you want to say or do, then spit it out, because Asari or not, you’re just another bitch, and I can be one too."</p><p>There was a silence amidst the music after her words. Aria bore a delightful, cold smile and tapped her boot. Lana noticed the stilettos were steel and fine as razors. <em>Okay, maybe calling out crazy bitchface with knives on her shoes was not a good idea. . . How the Hell does she walk in those? God damn Asari. No wonder men cheat with them so much.</em> She had heard of multiple hookups with the frivolous and free spirited species from Thessia among her crews while in the Alliance. Many an officer with polished metal and golden wreath had taken Asari to bed. The tales of scandal were proliferous. Lana rubbed her nose and sniffed. <em>What the Hell? I’m already in deep shit, aren’t I? And if I keep her focus on me, then hopefully Garrus and Thane will work the others out of their predicament wherever they are.</em></p><p>“This place fucking reeks,” Lana bitched, pulling a face as she tossed back her hair, catching the attention of the guards and dancers surrounding the upstairs lounge. “How can you stand sitting in a place that smells like body fluid, booze, stale booze at that, smoke, piss, and garbage? I thought Asari were supposed to smell like flowers or something? You? Do you ever shower to get rid of the stink? I mean, no hair and all. . . Supposed to be harder to clean the body, right? All those oils and dust and makeup directly on the skin. You must get ass pimples sitting in that chair all day. And leather? Your cooch probably smells like nineteen year old dog—“</p><p>Aria started to laugh. The others looked nervous, smiled, but it was a discomfited smile at best that Lana spied on the faces of her entourage.</p><p>Aria’s eyes slitted as she lowered her nose and looked out at Lana.</p><p>“Down below is an arena,” Aria drawled, removing herself from the leather seat and stalking over to the balcony ledge. “I want a fight.” She turned her purple visage and looked at Lana. “And I know just who would be fun to watch. . . Tell you what, Shephard. I like you. I think you’re either really stupid, or you really have balls inside those tight pants of yours. I don’t know, so I’d like to find out if you’re tough or not for me to consider letting you live. Because I’ll tell you something: I wasn’t intending on letting you go. But from one bitch to another, I like your spunk. It’s at least a good show, you being idiotic enough to speak. You go into that rink down there,” she said as the lights began to flash brighter and the music changed to some altercation type challenge, “and live through a few rounds of fighting, let’s say three, I’ll let you go with the thrashing you’ve earned, and Will Clarke can be told to go fuck himself.”</p><p>Lana’s eyes widened. She looked to the glass and beyond to the bar and club.</p><p>“What rink? Is William here?”</p><p>“No,” Aria said, holding up and manipulating a program on her omnitool, “not yet at least. Technically your ex-husband isn’t allowed into the Terminus and Attican Traverse due to the patrol order that was sent out. He’d be infringing on my personal privacy if he came here without being invited, and he knows better. No, he won’t be here, not as Alliance. . . But he’s got a ship that flies under Turian colors, you understand?” She smiled at Lana’s shock. “Didn’t know your ex was a player on the other border, did you?”</p><p>Aria’s whole body lit as she conjured dark energy and lifted Lana from her seat, throwing her over the balcony onto the floor below. Lana threw out a weak charge of biotics, catching herself as she landed and softening the impact by curling and rolling across the tarp that had risen from the parting floor. The entire club was re-altering itself to accommodate a cage and a mat with room to fight. There were chain links and hot wire that lit up and glowed. Lana stared at the top of the cage, wondering if the links were all charged and electrified. She turned her face towards Aria, who was leaning over the balcony, shaking with a laugh.</p><p>“Three rounds, Shephard! Entertain me, and I’ll let you live and hold back Clarke. You <em>and</em> your friends. But first,” she waved her hand towards the middle doors, an exit once presumed by Lana when she came in with Thane and the others.</p><p>The doors opened as men and women cheered, a Human with chains around his neck and collar. He was huge and looked as though he had been beaten in the face recently. Lana realized that something was hanging from the bleeding claw marks. . . Fingernails. She looked up at Aria.</p><p>“For real?” she shouted.</p><p>Aria waved her on and clapped her hands, applauding the festivity to begin as her minions gathered on the edge of the balcony and leaned forward to see the fight.</p><p>“We heard you were strong, Shephard,” Aria’s voice boomed out of the speakers surrounding the club, attracting more crowds to push and pull at the entrance to get in and watch. “Show us your biotics. Show us what the Star of Terra can do in a cage match!”</p><p>“Fuck,” Lana said to herself, watching the oafish face leer hungrily at her from across the mat. The cage door behind him closed and shut with a lock. The beast man seemed to have been trained to know what his release into the club normally meant. He had shorts and a bloody shirt that left a revealing glimpse of knotted muscle and piercings. Lana looked terrified for once, without her armor or her guns. Her wound was not fully healed and though her biotics were present, they, too, were not at full strength.</p><p>The first fist wiped her across the floor, Lana petrified and suddenly she knew she was fighting for her life. Why was this different from Torfan, Elysium, Prime, or any other landing where she’d gone in with her crew and fought invading marauders or extracting prisoners of war? Because then she’d had a team, she’d had her N7 greaves and her guns and missiles. Now she was weak and a victim who had been subjected to nothing but the worst breaking in of a mare brought out to be bridled and bred. But she’d had David.</p><p>And David was being brought to her.</p><p>Lana stared up into the wild, maniacal eyes of the gargantuan man and driving her fists together, boxed his ears four times. This did nothing but anger him further and he hauled her off the mat and threw her across the rink. The chains clinked and clattered with a mesmerizing sound, and the chainlink fence that Lana hit and bounced off of was fortunately not lit with electricity.</p><p>But she had managed to be freed from his grip.</p><p>Stupidly, the hulk of man walked over to her slowly struggling to push herself up. As the chains clinked and dragged closer, Lana prepared to be grabbed and rolled over. At the moment she happened to be flipped onto her back by the lecherous sneering face, Lana grabbed the chains hanging around his neck and held on something fierce as he picked her up and made ready to smash her down. Kicking out with all her might, she struck him in the nose, the man’s long arms holding her higher above his head, and with the gravity and her weight, she twisted, bit his hand until she struck bone, and clambered over his shoulders, free of his opening hands. The man was but a child in his head, so when she’d bit him, he let go of everything and squalled. Swinging down behind his back, Lane fell backwards through his legs and held fast the chains. In her boot, remained hidden until now, Lana had a switchblade which she’d had designed into the sole. Leaning back and pitching forward, the Goliath fell into Lana’s raised heel, which she had hammered into the ground to break open the clasp. The blade jutted out three inches from the bottom of her heel, and onto it, the throat of the first contender fell.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0048"><h2>48. Chapter 48</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tali covered her eyes, unable to watch as the huge man collapsed onto Lana in a heap, his neck and head bent at a frighteningly squeamish angle from the regular physiognomy of the body. Thane and Kolyat watched, tense, as Garrus hissed with laughter.</p><p>“Did you see that?” someone said outside their holding cell, also watching the live feed from the center of the club where Lana was fighting for her chance to free herself and them.</p><p>Lana’s body remained inert under the bulk of twitching flesh and limb, the sound of the chains shaking barely audible beneath the cheers from the onlooking crowds that were filling in Afterlife.</p><p>“Come on, Lana,” Garrus said, “Get up. . . Get up.”</p><p>After a long pause, the head of the man moved in jerking type motions. It at first looked like he was coming back to life, but suddenly the head rolled off to the side and Lana’s hair and face moved up, coughing and spitting out blood and wiping her face off with her hand. Thane sighed and looked at the guards, laughing at Lana covered in her victim’s throat fluids.</p><p> </p><p>She shuddered, completely grossed out to have someone’s saliva and blood covering her face from the throat she had just slit apart with a sideways kicking of her heel and the blade lodged into the man’s soft and thick tissues. She’d almost panicked when he fell on her with her leg caught by the boot with the blade.</p><p>“You got anything else?” she shouted up at Aria, pushing and sliding the rest of herself out from Gargantuano. She named him. “You got anything else for me, Aria? Because that counts as one, right? Just one? Fuck you!” She flipped Aria the bird of her middle finger. Aria made a kissy face and blew.</p><p>“Next!”</p><p>From the same doors where Gargantuano had come, Lana saw what appeared to be two Asari, twins more like, moving to the door of the cage and waiting for a Turian guard to deactivate and unlock it, holding it wide for the calm faced sisters. Lana smiled in spite of herself and rolled her head to look at Aria.</p><p>“Does this count as two and three?”</p><p>Aria held up one middle finger and shook her head with a smile.</p><p>“I like her,” Lana mused to herself. “She’s got a fucking sense of humor. Bitch.” She winced as she straightened from her knees and waited for the twin Asari to make the first move. The beer was pouring, the bribes and bets were being taken, and the profit Afterlife was raking in from those outside who demanded to see entertainment for their dull lives was making more money for Aria in fifteen minutes than in a whole day, what with the fight being broadcast on the big screens at the anterior of the club and along the walls of the main entrance foyer and lounge area. The Krogan who had been watching Lana still stood on the other side of the cage, nursing a beer of some sort in a large canteen. He placed the bottle down and moved closer to the stage of the rink. Someone told him to keep his distance and the Krogan settled him down with a blank, chilling stare.</p><p>Lana fought harder than the first round. The sisters had her lashed tight in glowing yellow cords of dark energy, pulling her towards them by the neck and the hot tether. Gritting her teeth, Lana tugged back on the lashes and drove her heels into the mat, snapping off the blade she had used to kill the ogre with. She spit as the lasso tightened and the Asari on the left revealed a ball of energy that matched the color of her eyes. Lana feigned innocence as she dropped to her knees and pleaded up at them.</p><p>“Please, please, don’t hurt me. I have a child.”</p><p>“We’ll send him to whatever Hell your kind goes to once Aria frees our bonds.”</p><p>“Okay. Well, when you put it that way.”</p><p>Lana swept out the right sister’s legs, and ripping off her boot, discharged another blade and stabbed it through her heart, spinning just in time for the other to release the singularity at Lana, which she had not yet for she was so surprised by how fast Lana was moving. But Lana was a Vanguard in her training for the Biotics N7 Division of her programming, and thanks to an excellent driller by the name of Kaidan Alenko, had the skills of an adept biotic. But not only was she was fast, Lana was powerful, and she had been saving her energy for something that demanded it. Snatching the Asari’s arm, she directed its orb of power at her sister, who was ripped off the floor of the mat while choking on her own blue blood and turned inside out through the singularity. The remaining Asari screamed as the wet, convoluted husk was spit out from the orb, and Lana drove her elbow into the woman’s face, cutting off the scream as well as the Asari’s tip of her tongue. Thinking that this woman might or might not go after David, the cold thought that someone would ever dare to threaten killing a child, her own boy, made Lana’s teeth almost crack, she was gritting so hard. She grabbed the Asari’s crest after she buckled the woman’s legs with a knee, and repeatedly pounded the woman’s skull against the tarp. It wasn’t going to kill her, until Lana wrapped her fingers around the woman’s neck and began strangling her, picturing Aria’s face, then Will’s, then Saren’s, as her fingers broke through the pale blue skin and began to coat with blood, smearing among her joints.</p><p>“Fucking. . . Die. . . Bitch. . . And. . . Go. . . To. . . Hell. . .”</p><p> </p><p>Tali gasped as Lana fought to subdue the Asari kicking and flailing her boots behind her, kneeing the Human in the back and clawing at her face. The camera VI moved in for a close up shot, and Lana wore a hysterical look.</p><p>It was so close to madness. The cheers were only egging her on.</p><p> </p><p>Lana let go when the Asari’s eyes bulged and the veins within the sclera burst. She gave off a death rattle, and the hands and nails stopping punching and scratching. Relieved, she slapped her hands onto the mat beside the dead Asari’s head and lifted her leg off from straddling her waist. She came to a stand, breathing heavily, blood on her face, hers, the Asari’s, the Human’s, and while the doors opened up and the leftover bodies were being dragged out, for three were a crowd, Lana stared at the smears of red and blue blood being cleaned up by the sweat crews.</p><p>“Why bother?” she shouted to Aria, waving her hands to the sides. “It’s just more gore. Did you like that, Aria? Send in more Asari. It’s easier for me to imagine your face on the floor.” She spit on the mat and wiped her mouth as a Vorcha looked up and growled at her. He’d been wiping the area where she had just spat. She nodded at him.</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>Aria leaned over and peered down at her prey walking in a slow circle, staring up at her. She had one boot on, the other gone, having been destroyed and turned inside out by the singularity. If this was the woman she had heard so much about, would she be able to take on the Adjutant?</p><p>She had to know.</p><p>The Misrephoth-Maim would be nearing the asteroid belt. If now was the only time she had with Lana Shephard, she had to know if she would be strong enough to fight the Adjutants. She had beaten the man of strength, that hideous deformation of breeding and steroids and insidious drug treatments. She had destroyed not one but two biotic Asari, who were masters with their variety and art of power. And she was fast, thanks to her own enhancements.</p><p>
  <em>Yes.</em>
</p><p>“Yes,” Aria hissed, slapping the railing, each time more excitedly. “Yes!” She swung about, shouting to her henchmen. “Bring in the Adjutant! Make the Well ready!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0049"><h2>49. Chapter 49</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What’s the Adjutant?” Garrus muttered. He looked at their captors, mandibles aflare. “What’s the Adjutant?”</p><p>The sole Batarian left standing in the room, as the others had run out with tense whispers once Aria’s announcement had been seconded by the captains over the coms, looked over at them and shook his head.</p><p>“It’s something that came with the plague when it hit in the lower levels of Omega. We thought it was just a random occurrence, one of those things that comes out of the sewers from time to time affected by the eezo, but there happens to be more of them, and they’re a nightmare to deal with.”</p><p>“That sounds bad,” Tali said worriedly.</p><p>“What are they?” Thane asked, moving closer to the barrier shielding them from the Batarian and he from them.</p><p>“We don’t know,” the guard shrugged. “We isolated one, and kept it contained in the sewer beneath Afterlife. It seems to be sensitive to electricity, but it absorbs biotics like it feeds.”</p><p>“What does it feed on, dare I ask?” Tali moved up beside Thane, touching the ripples of the barrier generated by a box on the floor under the Batarian’s foot.</p><p>“We think it feeds on flesh. We don’t know. It takes what it wants and we don’t find the bodies, but what it doesn’t take, it just tears up.”</p><p>“You have to stop Aria from putting Shephard against such as thing!” Tali cried.</p><p>The Batarian simpered and shook his head at her.</p><p>“Stand up to Aria? Are you kidding me? She’s the reason we haven’t been overrun by those things. And as for the plague. . . She’s the only Asari with enough pull in the Alliance to get medicine to the afflicted. If it weren’t for her, we’d all be dead. So, no, I’m not going to help you and don’t ask again.”</p><p>“This Adjutant’s going to kill her! You’re putting her to death!” Garrus snarled, hitting his head against the barrier.</p><p>The Batarian shrugged. “Obviously Aria thinks Shephard can do something about it. Aria wouldn’t put her in the Well otherwise, not with William Clarke on the way.”</p><p>The barrier fizzed and zapped as Thane hit the wall, his teeth bared.</p><p>“You better hope he doesn’t get out of here,” Kolyat said to the Batarian, “because when my father’spissed, all the nice-nice goes out the window.”</p><p> </p><p>The rink began to rise again, and then spread outwards. The tarp beneath Lana’s feet whipped out from under her, plummeting her into darkness. As before, she caught herself with a buffer of dark energy, and landed with a graceful, if tired, drop on a rusting cement-patched floor. Looking up, she could see, she guessed, that she had fallen twenty feet into a pipe that opened into a large tanker. This did not look like it was part of the entertainment venue. She could hear music and voices carrying on above at the opening, and didn’t know the walls around her were six feet thick to protect the internal sewer system that had been drained in this part of Omega.</p><p>“Aria,” she said, then thought better. The woman had no intention of hearing her. A grating sound was heard, and Lana turned, directing her attention to the walls of the round interior, where at intervals were semicircular tunnels leading off into darkness. It was akin to a nightmare of choice and fate, and evil, dark things lying, waiting, in between.</p><p>Lana was surprised to hear her omnitool spark to life.</p><p>“Lana?”</p><p>“Joker. . . Joker!” Lana held up the Savant and spoke at first into the cuff, Dae’s technology, before moving her mouth closer to the opposite speaker. “Joker! Are you okay? Is the Villetta okay?”</p><p>“There’s, ah, a set of guards outside. Not sure what they’re doing, but they can’t get in because I have the barrier up. What the Hell is happening? Why you guys been gone so long? Are you getting drinks without me?”</p><p>“Joker,” Lana almost laughed, cried, into the com. She grit her teeth, and spoke through her shaking rage, “That fucking Asari, Aria T’Loak, caught me and the others and has some sick fetish for cage fighting to the death. Thane, Garrus, Kol, and Tali are in I don’t know where, but I’ve been literally thrown into a cage against some fucking mutant Human Goliath and two Asari sisters who I managed to defeat all of. . . Joker, you have to get help. I don’t know who or what, but I can’t do anything right now. Aria’s dropped me into some. . . Septic tank for my third challenge and I can’t see shit or do anything besides take one of these tunnels. . . And I’m not so sure I want to. . .”</p><p>“What? Let me see if I can pull up your locator and extrapolate an exit.”</p><p>“Joker, I think I’m supposed to fight some sort of person called an Adjutant. . . No help from Aria, but do you have any clue that might help me prepare for what I’m supposed to fight next?”</p><p>Joker was silent, thinking of what to tell her. “I got bad news for you, Lana. If it’s what I’m thinking it is, it ain’t Human. About seven years ago, the Alliance pulled its funding on some project Will decided wasn’t showing any profitability. They called it Adjutant. Something they found out in deep space and were experimenting with. I guess it got sidelined or whatever because Will didn’t have to take the trips out there after the official audit was made and the recommendations were followed. . . Did you say you’re in a septic tank?”</p><p>Lana looked into the depths of blackness as she heard a purling rumble. <em>Please tell me that’s just somebody flushing a toilet. . .</em></p><p>“Joker, I need to know right now where the fucking exit is!”</p><p> </p><p>Joker slapped the console edge and ran his fingers into his hair. Looking back at him was a labyrinth map that could more likely than not be solved, as water sought always to escape, and by the looks of it, Lana was in the bowel system of Omega, which could prove disastrous on many fronts. Her current location was in the hemisphere of a path of tunnels, all connecting on her lone dot pinging away depressingly.</p><p>“Uh. . . Hoo boy. . . Go left. Six o’clock.”</p><p>“My clock or your clock? Can you send me a feed?”</p><p>He tapped in the upload and sent it to her device.</p><p> </p><p>Lana, relieved, looked at the screen popping up on her omnitool and quickly oriented herself by stepping towards her left. A breath of something foul permeated the air, and Lana turned and immediately started walking the other way.</p><p>“Okay, maybe not <em>that</em> tunnel.” She hated dark places, but she’d learned to suck it up. It didn’t matter if you were six feet under crawling through pipes or a mile high flying over water in a small shell meant to hurl you into the ocean at a drop point and you had to hope the latches would unclasp and your oxygen tank wouldn’t fail as you kicked and swam your way up to the surface with the help of a motorized jet. You went. You did. Or you were done for. Lana walked faster as something began to scratch on the pavement behind her, rasping against the interior walls like a chamber of hollow bells. She kept her breathing steady, thinking of David and thinking of Thane, thinking of anything that would keep her mentally intact. She couldn’t see for the life of her, but occasionally a hole would appear and a flash of something would come and go. Lana kept her feet moving, eyes to the glow of her omnitool until she ran into the end of the tunnel. <em>No</em>. She panicked, scratching out the wall, looking at the readout of the grid on her screen. <em>It shouldn’t be here. It’s a door! There has to be a way to operate it.</em></p><p>“Joker, hone in on me. I’m at a sealed tunnel, I think.”</p><p>“Can you open it?”</p><p>“Can you?”</p><p>“Lana,” Joker sounded freaked out, “I can’t do anything from here. I’m sorry, babe! Fuck. Jesus, how would they close a tunnel. Let me check and see if there’s. . .“</p><p>His voice faded out. Lana shook her omnitool, listened, held it up, trying to find a signal. Something had happened. Something had blocked her source. She slid her hand along the wall, this door that felt rough and grimy. She hated to think that what she was touching was crusted feculence, and thanked God at least the tunnel wasn’t running. But what the Hell was it sealing off?</p><p> </p><p>“Lana. . . Lana?” Joker sputtered, calling into the com of his empty cockpit.</p><p>To his right, he saw his wheelchair.</p><p>To his left, he saw the gauntlet he could wear to control his firearm without shattering his bones.</p><p>Pulling up the grid of Omega’s Afterlife, he sought for the markers of Thane, Kolyat, Garrus, and Tali.</p><p>“When all else fails,” Joker muttered, shaking the latch holds off his wheelchair and adjusting the seat, unfolding the handles and pads. He grabbed his gauntlet and a Stiletto from underneath his chair, which he could have used against the others but never did, and repositioning himself in his seat, he hid the gun under the gauntlet in his lap and put a blanket over these. He scruffed up his hair, pulled on a baseball cap that read N7, and wheeled down to the lobby to drop the access ramp.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0050"><h2>50. Chapter 50</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, you can’t be in here!”</p><p>Garrus looked up as Thane and Kolyat finished combining a program with Tali to hack the power generator by the door. The Batarian had gone to answer a tentative knock, and his voice rang back to their ears. Suddenly there was a pop, and the head of the Batarian rolled back into the room. Garrus’s mandibles twitched as he looked from the head with the others to the Krogan brandishing a knife and a heavy gun. The beast was red, glowering, but with a smile.</p><p>“Kolyat,” the Krogan said in a harsh, wily voice, “what are you doing hanging around here? I thought you were C-Sec refuse.”</p><p>“This one, too,” Kolyat thumbed at Garrus, whose mandibles flickered.</p><p>“Turian. . . You that Quarian I helped out back on the Citadel three years ago?”</p><p>Tali blinked luminously. “I don’t. . . Remember seeing you. . .”</p><p>“Probably about right,” the Krogan grumbled deep and rich. “You probably wouldn’t have seen me anyway. Those assassins didn’t. . . You,” he looked at Thane, “you must be the father of this squirt.”</p><p>Thane actually smiled and nodded to Kolyat. “He is my son. And you are?”</p><p>“Wrex. . . Urdnot Wrex. . . And apparently I brought this little guy with me.” He indicated the occupant of a wheelchair gliding down the rampway, who stopped by the generator box and stepped on the ON/OFF switch with his boot.</p><p>“Joker!” Tali smiled from behind her visor.</p><p>“I adopted a puppy,” he said, indicating Wrex with his finger.</p><p>“How’d you get inside Afterlife?” Tali asked, stepping forward to hug him. Joker made every effort not to be fresh with his hands.</p><p>“I was going to come in guns blazing, but the big guy here kind of beat me to the punch.”</p><p>“Literally,” Wrex rumbled.</p><p>“Yeah,” Joker chuckled, “apparently he’s had his eyes on you all and was making for the Normandy in the next bay over when he saw me rolling down the ramp and about to blast my way through the detail they set on the Villetta. Listen,” he cleared his throat, “all stories aside for a beer later, we really need to go find Shephard.”</p><p>“Have you been in contact with her?” Thane asked anxiously. He turned Joker’s wheelchair and started pushing him quickly up the rampway, Garrus picking up the Batarian’s rifle and running ahead to join Thane while Kolyat andWrex followed Tali in back.</p><p>They broke out into the lower section of Afterlife, which was darker and held the beat of the higher club.</p><p>“How do we find Lana, Joker?”</p><p>“She’s in the sewer system, so I imagine a drain and then go from there. I can’t go with you guys, but if you check your omnitools, you have access to the infrastructure of the asteroid. She was dropped through the access point in the middle of the club. I had her talking to me until she hit a wall and then the com ended.”</p><p>“Tali, take Joker back to the Villetta. Joker, keep listening for Lana. Wrex and Kolyat. . . Garrus, come with me.”</p><p>“Turians don’t like dark places.”</p><p>“Pussy.”</p><p>Garrus’s maw dropped open. “I don’t even think anyone’s had the balls to call me that before.”</p><p>Wrex shouldered him aside and followed Thane.</p><p>“Well, I’ve got four. I guess there’s a first for everything,” he rumbled out in chuckles.</p><p>Garrus looked at Kolyat, who scoffed at the Turian, tapped his eyes which had special lenses for seeing in the dark, and pursued Wrex and his father.</p><p>“Damn it,” Garrus chuffed, following them as they ran through the basement sprawl of Afterlife and out into the underlayer tunnels. Thane was keeping a read on the nearest sewer structure, avoiding the main Afterlife in hopes of not setting off Aria to their escape and her guards’ demise. For a Krogan, Wrex was fit and moving well, keeping up with the long limbed Drell and his counterparts catching up, also long limbed as running species go.</p><p>The closest access point was what dropped down into a vector tunnel that cut back towards the heart beneath Afterlife. Thane pulled up to a stop and looked at the doors.</p><p>“These have been sealed,” he said, pointing to the soldering of thick, heavy material permanently shutting the seams to uselessness.</p><p>“Why would they want to seal off the maintenance tunnels? How are they going to fix the station if something blows?” Garrus wondered. “And didn’t that Batarian say they kept the Adjutant in the Well?”</p><p>Thane turned heel and went back up the way they came.</p><p>“If we open the doors, there’s no telling what havoc may be let out onto this sector of the station. I don’t know what these Adjutants are, but—“</p><p>The sound of a heavy wall of steel <em>shreeling</em> and banging against concrete floors reverberated through at least three levels. Garrus, Thane and Kolyat stared as Wrex pried off the second door, making room for his bulk to easily walk through.</p><p>“So why don’t we just go find out and kill whatever we find,” he grumbled. Then the Krogan did something that surprised them. He tapped the com on his shoulder and called for back up. “Normandy, I’m at a maintenance tunnel. Confirm and send a squad with incendiaries to my location. Myself and three non-hostiles are going in for Shephard.” He winked at Garrus. “Courtesy of the Alliance.”</p><p>“No, you can’t bring the Alliance here,” Garrus replied. "They're trying to kill us.”</p><p>Wrex paused and narrowed his red eyes at them. “Alliance isn’t trying to kill you. They want Shephard.”</p><p>“Of course they want Shephard! To kill her!”</p><p>“Maybe you and me are talking about two different divisions,” Wrex rumbled, “but I don’t think her old captain wants her dead. Or her former trainer and crew. They’ve been waiting for a break like this for three years. I’m fairly certain they don’t intend to pose any harm. Now, if you don’t realize, we need to move. I think Shephard’s biotics are impressive, but she’s tired and in the dark probably with something that sounds only fun to a Krogan to have to meet in big dark spaces.”</p><p>“Let me go ahead of you,” Thane said, slipping into the inky blackness, his eyes making it easy for him to move and see what they needed to avoid. . . And she whom he needed to find.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0051"><h2>51. Chapter 51</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Do I have to do everything myself?</em> Lana thought, pissed that she wasn’t getting any holds or grooves in the wide metal wall that was disconnecting her from the other side of the tunnel.</p><p>A piercing wail of inhuman origin filled the air.</p><p>Lana’s blood went cold. <em>What the fuck was that?</em></p><p>Little blue lights appeared in the darkness far behind her, Lana having turned and watching it as if mesmerized. To her, they reminded her of pixies from fairy tales she had read to David in his story times while she was putting him down for nap. The lights became brighter, dancing in a little whimsical way that made Lana wonder if, for a second, the <em>thing</em> that had just issued that horrible wail was really something misunderstood and delicate.</p><p>She was wrong.</p><p>At the end of the tunnel opposite her, a blue flower suddenly appeared and the little blue lights gathered closer to it. She stared as it came nearer, slow and bobbing, tendrils of the bud unweaving and unfolding to create a wonderful suspense of imagination. And then suddenly, it whipped open, throwing the tentacles apart and rattling off a guttural hiss at its discovered gift from the Well’s opening.</p><p>Lana slid down the sealed door, hair catching in the dry filth, and her eyes reflecting the blue light rushing towards her.</p><p>She forgot how to use her voice, but in the instance that her mind realized it was about to be disengaged from her body, Lana rolled, jumped just as the behemoth smashed into the place where she was squatting, and threw out a barrier to block the Adjutant in the rear of the tunnel.</p><p>She ran back in the direction from which it had come, turning in time to see the Adjutant sniff the barrier as if it were inhaling it and removing it with laps of a glowing blue tongue. Lana backed away, preparing to test it with a warped energy field that could just as well burn it or do nothing, and this she delivered with an easy lob. As if sensing the new source of energy, the Adjutant’s blue head moved forward to greet the shimmery wall of light, walking right through it and stopping only to sniff at the residue of energy. It opened its orifice of what Lana assumed would be a mouth, and sucked with puckered rings at the field around it.</p><p>She was feeding it, and thus delaying her eviction from her senses. Lana scrabbled back as she tripped and fell, alerting the Adjutant to her noise. Leaking out a trickle of light, it began to form what appeared to be a new flower, only this one seedlike and purple. Lana watched it get larger and larger until she realized the flower was some powerful ball of energy coming right for her.</p><p>She leapt, hitting the wall, the glare of the collision of millions of matter exploding and illuminating the black thing in the end of the tunnel dogging towards her. Lana felt in her clothes for something to fight it with and stopped. . .</p><p>As the Adjutant was tasting her hair.</p><p>Lana did not move. She did not breathe, but did let slip a small breath of hot quivering air, frightening away the many minuscule tentacles reaching out from around the orifice of the mouth to sense her. She could see barbs inside the puckering rings, she was so close to its personal space of eating, and closed her eyes as she kept her lips shut and held her breath, the tentacles sticking to the skin of her face and winding into her hair. <em>This was it,</em> she thought, thinking of how far she had come and how soon she had failed, all because of Aria T’loak. Would Thane keep his promise and look out for David? What would that be like, to grow up as the foster son of a Drell. . . And Kolyat? The mouth began to taste her tears, blowing something hot and unpleasantly fetid onto her face. And then, it stopped, withdrew away from her, and went exploring down the tunnel, as if she wasn’t there. Lana opened her eyes to see the blue glow moving away from her, a clearly identifiable blue tentacle sweeping the air or touching the wall. She let out a shaky breath, tried not to gasp in too loudly, and covered her mouth with her right hand, which shook on its path to her face. Was she just dreaming? Had she offended its palate? Or had it already fed? In a rare chance of fate, the Adjutant was not ready to feed and was looking for something else. It went down to the far end of the tunnel, turned, and began to <em>chort</em> in a repetitive way. It was a strange sound, very different from what Lana had heard, and in a minute or two, it began to lay what looked like a thick, blue glowing mucus from its. . . She wasn’t sure what to call it because she couldn’t see, but it was to be sure that the Adjutant was indeed laying eggs.</p><p><em>That’s why you didn’t eat me,</em> she thought. <em>You’re in labor and you need to produce your birth. How wild is that?</em> Lana got on her hands and knees and slowly crept forward to where the tunnel opened into the original hemisphere she had landed in. She went to the opening, gleaming down like a bright and colorfully red, pink star. She wondered if anyone was watching her and the Adjutant laying its eggs. She wanted to rub this in Aria’s face, and then get the Hell off of Omega.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0052"><h2>52. Chapter 52</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thane moved quietly down the maintenance shaft. Garrus was having trouble, but only because he was nowhere nearly as adept as the Drell who were accustomed to the nocturnal, and so, too, Wrex. A Turian did not have a nomadic past or a Compact future with wet Hanar species requiring Drell to obtain special lens treatments with which to understand their communication. And Krogan had ever been comfortable both in the dark and the light, for their clutches were born in the safety of deep dwellings. . . And still found their way deeper what with the way of the Genophage. It was also said, that as a rite of passage in recent times, a Krogan was dropped into a hole many-many feet deep, and sealed in by a boulder. They were allowed one tool and had to crawl their way out as a birth into their adulthood, a symbol of the hope they would have to hold onto and reach for despite the steady decline of their species due to war, disciplining by the Council races, and despair. Wrex had been part of this new rite, which had only been enacted since the onset of the Genophage, its terrible destruction on a species that was naturally as warlike as the others, but doomed because they were successful, superior in rapid redevelopment and regeneration, but wholly uncivil and irresponsible towards their own kind. Wrex was a rarity in that he helped rather than destroyed unconditionally. He was a hulk, one of the more impressive specimens among Krogan, and had inadvertently attracted the eye of some men and women aboard the Alliance Normandy SR1 with his constant presence at the Citadel, bringing in quarry for processing and punishment, not to mention healthy bounties for his bank accounts, to Citadel Security. He was a familiar to those who had worked with him in collecting loose convicts as well as more notorious, well-hidden culprits. Recently, however, he had been recruited for his services of hunting and locating missing Human women who had left certain Councilors some very alarming evidence of a Spectre Turian in blatant conspiracy and plotting with a well-known matriarch among Thessian circles.</p><p>He moved easily passed a fallen wall that had been part of a bunker along the maintenance tunnel, an emergency dwelling in case of attacks, which the asteroid, in its early days of mining, had experienced frequently from marauding agents with the agenda of stealing or disrupting mining operations and all this encompassed.</p><p>“Lana should be this way,” Thane said softly, monitoring the ping of his target as he adroitly avoided fallen debris from the roof of the shaft. Kolyat followed after him, Wrex slowing down to check back on the Turian, who had slipped and cursed at his trip.</p><p>“Do you need me to hold your claw, Turian?” Wrex rumbled in jest of Garrus’s clumsiness in the dark space.</p><p>“Fuck off,” he growled back, tripping again in his boots. “Damn it. . . Hold on, I’m taking out my visor.” He reached into the breast compartment of his armor and slid open a slot, from which he removed a glass piece, which he set over one of his horns and lowered by a thick arm to cover his left eye. The visor created a beacon of light that filled the corridor, and Thane and Kolyat blinked back in the brightness.</p><p>“You’re going to advertise our presence to anything or anyone down here.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, when you get me a fancy pair of tinted lenses like the ones you’ve installed, courtesy of Hanar, over your eyes, I’ll turn off my visor. But for the time being, I’m keeping it on. I can’t see shit otherwise, and sound carries farther than light. So piss off.”</p><p>Kolyat chuckled and ribbed his father in front of the Turian and Wrex. They proceeded onward, coming to a crack in the shaft that each one of them had to make over by squeezing along a wall with a part of the floor still intact. They scuffed across the torn flooring and made about twenty yards into the darkness ahead of Garrus’s constantly moving light beam.</p><p>“Would you at least dim it?” Thane asked, slightly annoyed since the blend of light and his nocturnal vision were in conflict and distracting.</p><p>“Oh, yeah, I can do that. Hold on and I’ll get you a tissue with that whine.”</p><p>Kolyat laughed. Thane growled, “We are trying to be surreptitious, and the Turian, as always, is shooting off his mouth first, leaving thought for later.”</p><p>“You know, we wouldn’t be here if we’d just gone to Aria and asked her to let us go down that Well she was yelling about.”</p><p>“What is the Well anyway?”</p><p>“It’s a tanker underneath Aria’s Afterlife,” Wrex rumbled in to explain to Kolyat, “and it usually holds the filth from the club.”</p><p>“Oh! That doesn’t sound good for Lana,” Kolyat remarked, rubbing his crest with a thoughtful hand. “Not for her injury, too.”</p><p>“She probably won’t have to worry about infecting the wound. The tanker’s been drained. . . She’s hurt?” Wrex asked deeply.</p><p>“Yeah. . . She took a polonium round at the Citadel when we were fleeing Clarke.”</p><p>“Will Clarke. . .” Wrex thrummed. “He’s Alliance, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Garrus filled in.</p><p>“Something about him a while back caught my interest when I was approached by the Normandy captain, David Anderson. . . Said he was part of some Foundations program. . . Something that involved breeding select soldiers from the audience of that ICT program for N7s. I heard both of them were nominated.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Thane said, “but Lana was taken in against her will. I don’t know what William Clarke’s involvement was beyond his targeting her and. . . Subsequent manipulations. . . But I also know things about William Clarke that make him at least misguided. . . Or delusional. . .”</p><p>“Hmm,” Wrex pondered this as they turned towards a new corridor, Thane still leading and following the signal for Lana’s marker.</p><p>“Hey, didn’t you call him something?” Garrus remembered. “Accius. . . You called him Accius back as we were about to leave the Citadel.”</p><p>Thane nodded. “I did.”</p><p>“Why would he have a Turian name. . . The chit. . .The chit card had a Turian symbol on it. . . Son of a bitch. . .”</p><p><em>Yes</em>, Thane thought.</p><p>“Please don’t tell me that <em>that’s</em> who’s been helping protect Saren all this time. . . I fucking <em>knew</em> there was something to that investigation in ‘83! Damn it!” Garrus swore again but in his Turian tongue, naturally the com converter unable to translate the sound what with the Turian dialect he had used. Wrex rumbled in amusement as they climbed over some decrepit piece of furniture that had been dragged out from a room in the hall and used to block something or provide a barrier of cover. The more they found and had to struggle through, the more clear a picture of what had happened in the maintenance tunnels. There had been a desperate fight to evade an attacker, and much was strewn about to protect against or hinder advancement. Thane’s blood began to chill at the fact there were no bodies to be seen. . . Yet. He worried what exactly had been fled from and sealed inside the dark labyrinth through which they were now making deeper, and he prayed that Lana, his siha, was okay.</p><p>
  <em>I’ll find her before I leave here. . . We’ll find her. . . David’s counting on it.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0053"><h2>53. Chapter 53</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Misrephoth-Maim was a juggernaut of a ship, designated first class star vessel for two reasons: annihilation of a planet’s species and reconstitution of its populace. It was a vehicle of war that could house thousands if not millions. Quarian technology had been “misappropriated,” and much of the star cruiser was designed based on the Flotilla. It cradled a Dyson Sphere in the center of the ship, and had war grade guns along its perimeter. Like a turtle encompassing an earth, the Misrephoth-Maim floated through debris, knocking out a path through the asteroid field that was home to sullen Omega.</p><p>At the helm of the ship, Major William Clarke, first general of the Turian Hierarch’s secret score of Human accomplices set on dictating the terms by which reapers would greet a galaxy, set foot on the dais to his seat, and turned, looking at Aiolos for a remark as to when they would dock with the station ahead.</p><p>“Five more minutes, Will,” Aiolos said, lifting a nod to the Turian’s select ambassador for making an incursion onto Omega. If Shephard, his former wife, were there as Aria had mentioned, then he could spare no time. There was no telling what she was up to, and following standard procedure, he sought an audience with Aria immediately.</p><p>“Clarke,” Aria’s purple face appeared on screen, “you got here faster than I expected.” The Bitch of Omega smiled at him, a wit in the eyes.</p><p>“Aria T’Loak,” Will said, offering her a forced smile. He detested working with the Asari, and would have already replaced her if they hadn’t need of some form of competence running Omega.</p><p>But today, they did.</p><p>“Aiolos, please prepare our gift to the illustrious queen of Omega, and make sure she shows you to our quarry. . . I would like to see the Drell and his son first when Lana is brought to me.” And he smiled at Aria, removing the mute on the channel. Aiolos slipped away, accompanied by two female Turians.</p><p>“Clarke, do you have my credits for me?”</p><p>“Of course I do, love. We agreed on three million.”</p><p>“I want four. You gave me a Quarian, two Drell, and my former Archangel to have to expend energy on detaining. . . And Shephard’s destroyed three of my best fighters.”</p><p>“Then they weren’t good to begin with,” he chided her with a wagging finger.</p><p>Aria eyed the blond Human with the grim jaw. Will Clarke had always irked her. A varren in a cool façade that would bite when ready and good.</p><p>“Do you have Lana Shephard, Aria? I would like to see her before I dock the Misrephoth-Maim’s delivery ship. Just assurance that we won’t have a misunderstanding like the last time. You can appreciate that, yes?” He grinned.</p><p>“She’s preoccupied at the moment,” Aria replied, stowing the fact that Lana was with an Adjutant right then.</p><p>Clarke made no indication that this inconvenienced him, though he was rather vexed. He did not wish to expend resources searching for the woman he had to put out of her misery.</p><p>“Very well, Aria. I trust you,” William said. “You will have to lower your defenses. I know a ship this size can be quite daunting to a queen such as yourself. Room for suspicion is granted. However, we are of the knowledge that you wish for protection in the new changing of the guard. It would be a show of faith in our new alliance if you were to bare your trust by dropping the shields around Omega and shutting down your arsenal.”</p><p>“One shuttle, nothing more,” she stated, firm. “I trust you as far as I can throw you, Clarke. And a ship like that shouldn’t have to worry about parking itself just outside my doorstep. No,” she said, shaking her crest, “you either send something smaller, or I send her to you when I’m good and ready.”</p><p>Will leaned forward on the back of his seat, hands pressing into the stiff padding.</p><p>“Oh, Aria. . . You do know how to push my buttons.”</p><p>She smiled, but Will turned away and snapped his fingers. “Crew, prepare for boarding. . . Sorry, Aria, but I don’t have time to play your little games. I have an ex-wife to settle with, so. . . If you don’t mind,” he turned to look back at her, a sneer in his smile, “your time is up. . . I will see you in Afterlife, welcomed or not."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0054"><h2>54. Chapter 54</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thane stopped, detecting lights farther down the tunnel. Something was moving, and it was heading their way. He hissed at the others, telling them to be quiet. Garrus shut off his light, immersing them in blackness.</p><p>“What is that?” Garrus grumbled, peeved he’d had to lose the visor.</p><p>There were blue stars ahead, dancing alone in the dark. The lights seemed to rotate around each other, and were joined by three more.</p><p>A fetid stench could faintly be scented as Thane tested the air with his nose.</p><p>“Adjutants?” Kolyat whispered.</p><p>Thane glanced at his omnitool. They were not far from Lana, but the way led through the lights, and just as he began to wonder what would make such a glow, the flowerlike tentacles blossomed wide open in response to a dim, muted call, a <em>chort-chort-chort</em>, from deeper down and straight ahead. The sound of long nails scratching caught their ears as the lights wound into themselves and disappeared behind the blocking darkness of what would be two large bulks. The <em>chort-chort-chort</em> occurred again and Thane raised his head to peer down the shaft.</p><p>“Now where do you think they’re going?” Garrus said in the dark behind him.</p><p>“Too bad,” Wrex grumbled deep, “I was hoping for a fight.”</p><p>“We know they’re sensitive to electricity. Would that include light?” Kolyat asked suspiciously.</p><p>“Maybe, but it would be dangerous to use without knowing. We should follow the shaft, even if it’s leading us after whatever was just ahead. . . Lana’s marker is not far from where we are.”</p><p> </p><p>Lana backed up as the light dimmed and a body fell through. The noise from above the Well’s opening was rife with gunfire and screams. She glanced nervously at the edge of her tunnel to where the Adjutant may show. It didn’t.</p><p>She stepped out of the way as a flare of dark energy lit the tanker and Aria T’Loak alighted with an ease despite her sudden fall from above, unceremoniously pushed into the Well. Lana stepped as far back into the shadows as she could, knowing the biotics might attract the Adjutant. From above, she heard more fire, more clatter, tables and glass likely being tipped or broken, and then silence as a harsh voice barked orders.</p><p> </p><p>Aria stood in the center of the Well, gazing upwards with a scowl on her face, hands upon her hips as she squinted into the light. She lowered her gaze to cast it about her, taking in her surroundings, and cautiously moved towards the wall where Lana was hidden.</p><p>There was a pop, and a shadow wavered in the light. Aria looked up again to see the sleeve of her second in command, Anto Bek'tall, hanging off the lip of the Well.</p><p>He had pushed her when she chose not to leave the club, taking her by surprise as she was watching over the mouth of the Well and listening to hear for Lana’s demise. Not want to give up the only cure for his brother’s illness in the plagued section of Omega, he had saved Aria from the surrounding invasion of William’s boarders. But it was Aiolos who had come through the doors of Afterlife, and inquiring of Aria’s second, finding no cooperation besides a set jaw and obstinate silence, Lieutenant Aiolos sent an example to the others in Afterlife and watching the big screens under guard of gun and threat outside.</p><p>“Where is she? My general needs Aria here right now to answer for where she has stored a handful of criminals under command of Lana Shephard. Those of you who wish to make some credits can redeem the offer by providinganswers to my questions. Otherwise, I will have my men shoot each and every one of you whom I think is lying.”</p><p>Aria, not one to back down from a fight, especially when her people were on the line, stepped forward beneath the opening.</p><p>She twisted when a hand grabbed her arm, balling her fist with energy. Lana wheeled and pulled back on the arm, digging her elbow into Aria’s jaw and cracking her hard as soon as she released the fist. Kicking her legs out, Lana pinned Aria down against the dirty floor, hissing into her ear.</p><p>“Don’t fucking do it. You’ll get us both killed, and then there’ll be no one to take back Omega. It’s a coup, don’t you see? They’re not going to talk to you. I’m his son’s mother, and Will won’t stop at trying to kill me. What are you? Bitch from somewhere? Now keep shut and keep your head.”</p><p>“How the fuck are you still alive? What did you do to defeat the Adjutant?” Aria demanded, violet eyes searching the tanker from her view on the floor.</p><p>“I didn’t,” Lana growled back, jerking her forearm against Aria’s neck. “Thanks for being so gracious. Your Adjutant is a female and she’s laying eggs in the far tunnel end to the right. They eat biotic energy. She didn’t want to add me to her diet, probably because I gave her a sweet, but more likely, I recall when <em>I</em> was in labor, I didn’t want to fucking eat anything because all I wanted to do was push out a baby! So we’re in luck, you fortunate purple bitch. I’m going to save you just this one time, because you obviously run a tight ship though it’s a fucking slum, and you’re fucking delusional.” She looked up at the hole in the ceiling, listening to more people crying and dying, guns succinctly performing their errand as God knew what William’s men were doing. “How many are there? Enemy-wise.”</p><p>“There’s a fucking army,” Aria spit into the grainy texture of the ground, still unrelenting against Lana’s balancing force, “the Misrephoth-Maim carries Turian and Human guard. It’s a militarized colony that flies. They could take everyone from Omega. . . Not that they would,” she thought on second hand.</p><p>“How many are in Afterlife?”</p><p>“I don’t know, a handful right now. They’re all armed.”</p><p>“What is a handful to you? Fifteen, fifty, sixty, a hundred?”</p><p>“More like thirty, but there’s bound to be more.”</p><p>“I have a hunch we’re going to be sitting ducks if they look inside the Well. We need to use that Adjutant. If we separate it from the eggs and combine our energy, we can lift it up to the opening. It probably weighs a tonne though, which is why I need <em>you</em> to help.”</p><p>“What makes you think I can lift that, never mind want to help you? How do I know you won’t try and kill me?”</p><p>“Because I’m stuck in here, in a shit can, with my ex upstairs or about to be, and I just saved you from doing something stupid, which I imagine someone’s trying to save you, otherwise you wouldn’t be hiding down here—“</p><p>“I’m not hiding! I was pushed by fucking Anto who’s dead now!”</p><p>“Good, see? Someone wants you alive, but I guarantee you Will wants you dead, and if he wants you dead, then that means you’re a threat to him and whatever he’s protecting. And that’s a benefit to me. Now I don’t know what this Misrephoth-Maim thing is, but I do know that Adjutant likes dark energy. You draw it over here. I’ll wait for it and lift it. I don’t think we can hurt the damn thing, but we should still be able to manipulate a stone. We just need to move fast and make sure this works. You’ll add your power to mine and we’ll lift it together, send it to the opening, and let it scare everyone off. At the very least, it’ll provide a decent distraction, and then <em>you’re</em> going to help me get out of this fucking shithole!”</p><p>As a show of good faith, Lana stood and offered her hand to help Aria, who sneered at the peace offering and pushed herself to her feet, working her neck in a circle to ease the pain Lana had applied through her restraint. And just as unexpectedly as Lana’s offer to cooperate rather than take out her fury against the woman who had toyed with her and disarmed and imprisoned her crew, Aria smiled with a cunningness that made Lana wish she had never met the Asari, for here was a viper that would never be tamed.</p><p>“Alright, Shephard, say we call truce. I’ll help with your plan, because right now I have to, if I’m going to have a chance of fighting off this assault on my club and my asteroid.”</p><p>“Good. I’ll be here. Now go introduce yourself to the new mother and be ready to help. I’m counting on you to stick to your part and do this, because if you don’t, eventually that Adjutant is going to be hungry after laying all those eggs, and I get the feeling that Aria isn’t all completely invulnerable to fear.”</p><p>“I am averse to being eaten alive. Or shredded up,” she muttered, turning her back and walking away from Lana. She went in the direction of the tunnel where, as she turned, she heard a warning purl. Followed by a harsh <em>chort-chort-chort</em>. The Adjutant was either calling for its kindred or warning whoever was drawing nearer to her clutch. Aria saw the blue haze of biotic energy flowing out from the pool of slime and round eggs piling one after the other on the floor. She could see the dark outline and the reflection off a plastique bulk of thick hide and strangling cords winding and snaking up the foot of the fore leg, tipped with long claws. If she were not so terrified of being eaten alive, Aria would have found the creature beautiful, as even the blue tentacles that folded open and exposed a long pair of glowing eyes moved forward over a round mouth filled with barbs. The blue light brightened as it issued another <em>chort-chort-chort</em> of warning, telling her to back off.</p><p><em>Shephard better be able to handle this. She’s a big girl if that foot’s any indication of what’s in store to lift.</em> Aria pulled out a knife from her sleeve and threw this at one of the eggs. It popped with a hiss and a splatter on the foot of the Adjutant, which turned full on Aria in a rage. Birth fluid leaking from behind and underneath, the tentacles flared wide as the orifice opened more, exposing hidden teeth that looked more for rending than chewing, and from its belly the Adjutant issued a wailing scream.</p><p>It charged.</p><p>Aria turned and fled, running towards Lana, who she could see bracing against the far floor. Toes hammering the ground, Aria sprinted on the balls of her boots, razor heels flicking back the blue angry light of the rushing Adjutant, which was still screaming at her.</p><p>Lana braced, trying to keep her breath even, but her head and her heart were excited with terror. She focused on the blue head of the Adjutant weaving and bobbing behind Aria’s dark silhouette and as Aria crossed the pool of light, she spun and slid, throwing out a lifting wall of energy to scoop up beneath the leaping Adjutant.</p><p>Lana saw the devil in the light.</p><p>Despite its blue dance of graceful tentacles and the thick petals of its head that were unlike any flower she had ever seen, the Adjutant had the form of a Human body bound in black tethers wrapped and winding over thick, corded muscle expanding the chest above a row of teats that made her think it was some foreign mammal that had been hideously warped and deformed. Issuing all of her energy, she joined the wall Aria had made at the same time the Adjutant leapt across the pool of light, and catching it, they both grunted.</p><p>The Adjutant weighed heavy. Lana’s foot hit the wall as she slid back from the force struggling above them, Aria nearly pressed into a squat beneath the weight of lashing tail, thick limbs, talons, and maw. The mucus from the base of its genitalia whipped about and covered the walls and floor as it thrashed to fight the dark energy lifting it. Yes, the Adjutant could feed on their biotics, but not so much all at once, which was like a flood of food, carrying it away. Lana stepped forward from the wall, feeling her abdomen twist and flex, the wound in her side ripping open, and repositioning herself for better leverage, she shouted long and loud as she hurled her strength into the force with Aria’s insanely beautiful power. Together, they managed to heave the Adjutant higher and higher until it began to scratch and claw the walls of the Well’s neck. Aria lifted, pushing through her dangerous heels, adamantine metal that would never break and only cut if used so.</p><p>“Grab onto it!” Lana yelled, as the Adjutant’s load began to lessen, it having reached the top of the Well and scrabbling out to the shock of those above. <em>I hope Will’s up there.</em></p><p>Aria did not understand the command until she felt herself thrown up bodily by Lana’s own powers, hurtling her directly into the hindquarters of the Adjutant. With the way the beast was constructed, it was easy to grab a hold and ride a calf out, but the phlegm from beneath its tail was everywhere, even hitting Aria in the mouth. </p><p>She gagged at the reek and foul.</p><p>Lana collapsed and grabbed her side, hissing at the sharp pain, relieved and yet still trapped. She looked up at the constant movement of shadow suddenly stopped, only flashing lights remaining, and all she heard were the screams and wild gunshots, accompanied by the enraged bellows of a mother taken from her eggs.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0055"><h2>55. Chapter 55</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The uproar was instantaneous. Everyone, regardless of age, shape, or whether they held a gun, took two steps, then four, then fled as the hideousness that was angry and black with blue head writhing in medusalike tentacles climbed out of the Well and lunged with mouth and claw. Aria came next, catching her feet, or heels rather, on the edge of the Well’s lip and stumbling forward, spitting out in horror at what she’d just had a taste of, and flabbergasted by Lana’s impromptu remedy for their situation. She had to admit, the woman was clever, resourceful. But it was time to pay back.</p><p>Not to begrudge one a favor, Aria leapt into the fray, taking aim at the nearest Misrephoth-Maim guard, identified easily in black. It was Aiolos, and she sent him forty feet through the air. Aria ducked as the Adjutant careened off a bar, bellowing heartily, and lashed out at whatever it deemed an encumbrance to its egg laying, which was wide in selection. Two of her own men, Afterlife escorts, were knocked aside by the flailing tail. A dancer screamed, blocked between the body and tables overturned by the fracas.</p><p>It was complete pandemonium, what with the Adjutant and Aria’s arrival.</p><p>Trailing a blaze of dark energy, Aria whipped a lash of her own ferocity at the neck of an M-M guard and took the Turian to halves. Blue blood spattered like spilled crystal on the floor, lining up the stage that had not been sunk into its moorings. With a savage pull, Aria took down another M-M guard, guiding him between her boots. She struck down with her heel. The razor did its work in piercing the ribbed necking between helmet and shoulders.</p><p>She dodged as William Clarke suddenly appeared, intent on the Adjutant. To him, Aria was a bug, a pest, but his work was committed to something else.</p><p>He raised an electrically-charged rifle and aimed it at the real threat to his men, his Turians, his platoon, and shot what seemed to be warbling projectiles from the mouth of an oddly shaped gun. It resembled a French horn in how he gripped it and where the projectiles leapt out.</p><p>The Adjutant screamed in its gut wrenching rail, the orbs stuck to its hip and pulsing with charges.</p><p>The pain made it angrier.</p><p>Wheeling on an M-M guard with thick suit and armor reinforced around waist and shoulders, with one swipe of its claw, it removed the helmet and nearly the head from neck, before dropping its mouth over the dead man’s face, clamping down as he still stood. The fleck of bone and brain matter dribbled from its orifice as the deranged Adjutant shrieked and screamed, rounding on guns charging with more electrical fire.</p><p>William found Aria and grabbed her by the throat.</p><p>“This is the welcome you give me? I should have had you replaced when we first met.”</p><p>He was deliberately calm, holding her high with a suspendor built into the armed glove encompassing his fingers to his shoulder.</p><p>“Let her go,” a deep rumbling voice commanded.</p><p>Clarke looked over his shoulder at a very old Krogan come from a lower compartment hidden beneath one of the Afterlife staircases. He wore rusted battle armor, but he was still big, dangerous, and had the shrewd eyes of the brute who once ruled Omega.</p><p>“Patriarch!” Aria shouted, struggling to loosen Will’s grip. Her legs kicked, purchaseless in the air. “Stay where you are! Don’t fight my battles!” she snarled.</p><p><em>She would be livid</em> if William dared to touch the old enemy she had beaten once in her hardest earned fight over Omega. The king she had kept as a pet, had grown soft for, relied on for advice, and so, too, comfort.</p><p>The old Krogan thumped forward in his beaten battle armor and lowered his dully gleaming green crest.</p><p>“<em>Krogan. . . Charge</em>!” he bellowed.</p><p>And slowly began to stump towards Clarke and Aria.</p><p>Clarke laughed, too tickled by the sight and ridiculousness. Narrowing his eyes in mockery, “Are you <em>serious</em>? You must be kidding. What on Earth would you be able to do to me, old dinosaur?” He kept his eyes on the fogey old Krogan, whom he had met in the past while dealing with Aria, and written off as stupid and slow. But Patriach was clever and wise, though he’d been beaten by an Asari maiden. As he distracted Clarke and Aria, Grizz, another of Aria’s faithful soldiers, popped up from behind a counter and aimed at William Clarke’s chest with a barrel slugger of a rifle, and with his aim lowered some to hit him in the gut, released the sledgehammer round that would knock him off his boots.</p><p>Aria was freed as Will fell backwards and slid almost into the opening of the Well. Aria landed on her feet and made to finish him, but Patriarch had sped up, moving with surprising speed for one so old, and catching her arm, dragged her towards Grizz. With a final tug and jerk, he got her to move with him and shielded her from the shots being fired by M-M troops not distracted by the Adjutant or her remaining men in Afterlife.</p><p>“Live to fight another day,” Patriarch coolly rumbled to her as they rounded the counter where Grizz waited to cover them, and they took a ladder to the lower club’s level to evade Will’s forces.</p><p>“I have to help Shephard,” she growled, wrenching her arm away and activating her omnitool.</p><p>“Then open the Well,” Patriarch rumbled somberly, “and let her have the chance to fight her way out. That’s the best you can give her. But you’d be better off letting her die.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, someone could say the same thing about you,” she snipped back snidely, finding the controls for Omega’s sewers. She smiled. <em>Good luck, Shephard. You’ll want to kill me after this.</em></p><p> </p><p>Clarke groaned and rolled over, trying not to nurse his stomach or his head, one from the punch of the bullet, the other from hitting the floor. He grabbed onto an edge and slowly pushed himself up.</p><p>Catching sight of the gauntlet on the rim, Lana moved forward into the middle of the Well and called out to Aria, but she spoke too soon, realizing it wasn’t her temporary ally. Will Clarke’s pained grimace came into view and Lana ducked back into the darkness as soon as she’d seen the blond hair and pale brow.</p><p>“Lana?” he called into the Well, hearing only his familiar voice echo back. “Lana, was that you? . . Come out. I heard your voice.”</p><p>Lana ran back to a far tunnel seal, trying to search again for an access node or electrical panel she could hack to open the door.</p><p>“Lana. . . I know we’ve ended on the wrong foot, but if you’re down there, it wouldn’t do for David’s mother to drown in a cess tank. Why don’t you come into the light? I’ll give you a better death,” he offered, withdrawing a pistol from his armor’s holster in the thigh panel and cocking back the trigger to prepare for the killshot. Satisfied he’d finally pinned her into a hole, quite literally, he concentrated on the darkness, waiting for movement. He ignored the Adjutant being corralled by his men and the Turians from the Misrephoth-Maim. “David misses you, you know,” he mentioned into the hole.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck you, Will.</em>
</p><p>Lana bunched her fists, pressing both palm heels into the wall sealing her to her doom.</p><p>Aiolos limped over, nursing a bruised rib, and removed a small disc with an unlit lens on the side. This he passed to his superior officer, and Will, uncocking the pistol to take the disc instead, smiled his thanks to his second in command.</p><p>“On second thought, Lana. Stay right where you are. I’ll be down in a bit to find you,” he added as he depressed a key and dropped his glove’s contents into the Well. “Or what’s left of you,” he added with a cruel smirk.</p><p>Lana’s eyes widened at the sound of a <em>clink, roll, rattle,</em> and finally, spinning stop.</p><p>There was a subtle blip, and a second later, Lana’s eyes reflected the intense luminosity of burgeoning fire.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0056"><h2>56. Chapter 56</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As the light wound round the corner of her tunnel, Lana felt relieved. It would only reach so far. She was well enough back not to be incinerated by the grenade that went off, courtesy of Will, but she thought with an undue smugness that it had been a jerk move. Sitting with her back against the sealed door, she looked at her bare toes on the left foot in the light. Her side stung and she was bleeding, but she contemplated doing something about that, something that would result in quite an intense amount of temporary pain.</p><p>Holding her hand up, she directed energy to the palm, causing it to tingle, and cradling it, she lowered her palm to the hole in her side that had opened again after the fighting and wrestling with the Adjutant.</p><p>Lana lifted up her shirt as she simultaneously intensified the power of warping energy into her skin.</p><p>She cried out, stifling her sound as the seams of flesh and muscle joined in a terrific knot of pain, burning unlike any fire or heat she’d felt. She knew it was dark energy. She had struggled with controlling it for years before the Alliance found her able to manage it.</p><p>And then she’d met Kaidan Alenko, the drill biotic from BAaT, the Biotic Acclimation and Training program on Jump Zero.</p><p>He had survived a failed yet arguably successful biotics initiative on Gagarin Station. He had been first of his class to truly master the dark energy he possessed. With his tutelage, and warnings, he had trained Lana in the biotics division of the Interplanetary Combatives Training, helping her harness a level of control that he’d had to discover quite by incident on Jump Zero, the nickname for Gagarin.</p><p>They both were gifted, and disciplined; Kaidan more so because of his lessons against abuse of power and overreach that he had learned by grave misfortune.</p><p>Lana puffed her cheeks, focused, as she warped the open flesh with her own dark energy into a seamless, albeit purple and red, knot of skin.</p><p>Once she was done, and the pain only an intense burn, she laid her head against the door to catch her breath and to recover. The sticky flames of the incendiary, its thamthrite eating through even steel, gave her something to amuse herself with as the seconds passed by. In time, Will would send his crew to look for proof she was dead. She would be out of luck if, by then, she had not opened one of these sealed tunnels. Inwardly, she cursed Aria for not following through with her word, and bumped her temple against the steel door saying, “I wish you would open. Show me something real.”</p><p>Because she was having a hard time believing the current situation. And, of course, nothing happened.</p><p>Except suddenly a gas began to pass through the vents in the top of the tunnel.</p><p>Lana looked at it, alarmed, hoping it was not methane or some other toxin. Being in a sewer, there were bound to be vapors, but Lana assumed the Well was sealed. She had seen the holes open and close on occasion, emitting no more than light once in a while, but otherwise leaving her to darkness, now abbreviated by the glowing thamthrite at the joining of the Well’s hub.</p><p>Lana covered her mouth, suddenly sure it was methane. If the amount intensified, she was being set up for an explosion that there would be no escaping.</p><p>“What is that smell?”</p><p>“Didn’t do it.”</p><p>Someone’s deep chuckle echoed from the holes overhead, along with footsteps on a grate echoing from high above somewhere. There must have been an outlet that Lana could not see, and that was connecting her to life other than Adjutants and enemy.</p><p>She turned on her omnitool, hoping the screen would give her enough light by which to find where these voices and footsteps were coming through to her ears.</p><p>“I’ve got an intensified signal here,” someone said.</p><p>Lana jumped from her seat on the floor, shouting for Thane.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0057"><h2>57. Chapter 57</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Their voices were distant, but sure enough, she recognized her crew (except for one).</p><p>Through one of the openings in the ceiling, its not serving as a gas inlet but as some form of viewer for inspections or chemical applications, Lana carefully directed her voice through the hole.</p><p>“Thane! Thane! I’m down here! It’s me! It’s Lana!”</p><p>Her voice bounced off the walls, surely notifying Will if he was still listening for her continued existence.</p><p>“Thane!”</p><p>“Lana.” The voice was far. She could hear footsteps gathering, followed by a <em>thud</em>, and metal girders squeaking.</p><p>
  <em>There must be some overhead shaft for maintaining the sewers.</em>
</p><p>“The doors! The doors! They’re sealed! And Will’s in Afterlife! He’s got an army and he’s dropping incendiaries down here!”</p><p>
  <em>The fuck.</em>
</p><p>She realized that if the methane and gas were to explode suddenly, the result would take out Thane and the others with him.</p><p>“Thane! You have to go! It’s not safe! There’s gas in the Well! Get out!”</p><p>“I’m not leaving you once I’ve found you,” he called down, a bit cross with her for suggesting that he do so.</p><p>She heard metal being worked and imagined there was a grid he was trying to get through.</p><p>The scent of methane was stronger, carrying with it noxious ammonia and other unpleasant odors. Lana’s eyes began to water as she tried to ignore the steady, insidious release of gas.</p><p><em>Why is it coming to life now?</em> she thought, annoyed. <em>Is Aria</em> trying <em>to gas me out?. . . Would suit her idea of favors, of course.</em></p><p>“Lana." Thane’s voice was so close to the mouth of the pipe above, but she couldn’t see anything.</p><p><em>He</em> could see <em>her</em>.</p><p>“Baby. . . I need you to know how good it is to hear your voice,” Lana calmly called, briefly forgetting the thamthrite, and the gas, along with the dull pain of warped flesh in her side.</p><p>Thane reluctantly ignored the compliment and his relief at being six feet away from her instead of miles. “Lana, we need to get the doors open—as you know, I’m sure. . . Can you hear me well enough from where you are?”</p><p>“Yes. I could hear you walking above. . . Where are you? What’s around you?”</p><p>“We have followed some maintenance tunnels and taken a few turns. . . We think there are Adjutants loose.”</p><p>“They’re dangerous, Thane. Aria and I just sent one up through the Well. Hopefully that’s what’s keeping Will busy, though he could be waiting to come down once the incendiary’s out.</p><p><em>What is she doing with Aria?</em> <span class="Apple-converted-space">he wondered.</span></p><p>“Is T’Loak with you?”</p><p>“No. Not anymore. I sent her on a ride,” she grinned, but frowned. “She was supposed to keep to her part of the deal and help me get out, but there was a lot of commotion in Afterlife, so I don’t know if she’s rescinded her part of the bargain, been distracted, or if the gas vents opening are any indication that she’s putting something to work on my behalf. . . I hope. . . I guess dying from methane explosion would be equal in a way to having her face shoved into an Adjutant’s back quarters,” she giggled in spite of her situation.</p><p>Thane did not know what to make of this, but with Lana, there was sure to be an interesting story.</p><p>He looked ahead and behind to where he thought he saw a strange contraption.</p><p>“Garrus, can you point your light to the left? Correction, turn around. Yes.” He waited for the beacon on the Turian’s visor to stop swinging circles and shook his head at how aloof Garrus could be sometimes, especially with the constant ribbing by Wrex—and Kolyat. The pair were giving Garrus a rile. “Tell me what you think that device is.”</p><p>“It looks like a porthole with a screw.”</p><p>The light swung back to Thane, who winced and moved out of the glare. It fell directly through the hole leading to Lana’s green eyes looking in.</p><p>“Hey. . . I know that look. That’s a happy-as-fuck-to-see-you-alive Lana stare!” the Turian called.</p><p>Lana smiled. Garrus was certainly coming around with his sense of humor.</p><p>“You guys are standing on a pipe filling with methane and God knows what else. . . And there’s already burning thamthrite,” she called upward, cupping her mouth to project more directly at the hole above, not bothering to look away from the blue glow.</p><p>It was a relief to see light, at the end of which were friends.</p><p>“Lana? We have a Krogan with us. The one named Wrex. He is going to come down and speak to you while I go over to a cap lid and see if I can remove it. I will make sure it is useful first, of course.”</p><p>She could hear the smile in Thane’s deep, gravel voice. She was looking forward to hearing him breathing in her ear again.</p><p>A loud <em>clang</em>, and then heavy, scuffing footsteps could be heard through the pipe. Lana heard the unmistakable, rough rumble of a Krogan. He sounded impressive and bass.</p><p>“Lana Shephard, I presume. The Star of Terra. How’s the view?”</p><p>She liked him, but exercised caution.</p><p>“Nil. Sorry for the means of first introductions,” she hollered back up. “I take it you’re the one who was giving me the dirty eye at Afterlife.”</p><p>The rough rumbling of amused laughter came down.</p><p>“I have red eyes, which makes people think I’m some sort of devil. . . But it’s true. I came here looking for you. I send compliments of one David Anderson and Kaidan Alenko.”</p><p>“That would be two. That’s great to hear,” she replied, wondering why they would be looking for her. She hadn’t seen Kaidan in years. And Anderson?</p><p>She had mixed feelings about the man who did nothing to stop what Foundations was going to do with her. She had always considered Anderson as having, maybe, betrayed her a little, in that he was her superior officer and signed her de-commissioning. But she never forgot the look in his eyes the final day she saw him while she sat in a robe and stared at each signature of those papers that would disgrace her, stow her, and use her for what would have been the mission to take down Saren.</p><p>At least that’s what she’d been told.</p><p>Who knew what other lies she had been fed by Clarke and his superiors, speaking through their lawyers, their secret channels, and a wealth of online communication.</p><p>“Lana,” Wrex went on, “you get out of there, we’re going to go straight to the Normandy for a little talk with your friends from the Alliance.”</p><p>Thane looked up alarmed, as did Kolyat and Garrus looking down at the Krogan above the viewing hole. Wrex had implied there might be some sort of division between certain Alliance parties, but if Lana was to go anywhere after they’d extracted her from the Well, which they were still figuring out how to do, she was going straight to the Villetta, and from there, to the meeting point on Kahje, where Thane hoped Feron and David would be waiting.</p><p>“We can talk about it when I get out of here,” Lana said, somewhat distracted by the sound of hidden water. <em>What’s that?</em> “Thane? Wrex, can you tell Thane I think I hear the pipes running with water—“</p><p>She gasped as a vent in the wall left of her opened and shot out something cold and constant as water, and it did not let up once it was released.</p><p>She spit out the wet hair in her mouth and backed away from the cold jet.</p><p>“Lana?” Thane’s voice carried from the cap lid he was analyzing with his omnitool.</p><p>Wrex looked from Thane down the hole. “Smells like damp. . . Aria must be filling the tanker.”</p><p>“Good,” Garrus said from above. “If the pipes are flowing, then that means the Well seals will be opening soon.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t put it past Aria to renege on her side of the deal with Lana,” Thane said, hurriedly following the pipe from the connector he had found attached to the cap lid. “This will lead us to an access point. I’m following it. I will be back as soon as I can find it, but tell Lana to stay in this tunnel. I have a feeling it will connect to some access seam nearby.”</p><p>“The sewers can only be accessed at the transition points. Other than the Well,” Garrus replied, getting unseen looks from the others for having withheld the information, “there would be an access point at either the drop from one level to the next, or at the end. The pipes are all a man or two wide enough and can carry everything to the bottom of Omega.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you say this before?” Thane demanded.</p><p>“Because I didn’t know about the Well or how it was constructed. I’ve lived on Omega for a time, running operations with my crew for Aria—the crew that you killed, by the way,” he said darkly, foregoing the previous ease of banter and social, "and I know the rest of the system because we’ve used it to make our maneuvers. But Aria always told us to avoid Sectors 80 through 100, which are below us and around us. She never told me about the Adjutants.”</p><p>“That’s twenty levels,” Kolyat calculated quickly. “Twenty levels filled with Adjutants. . . Are there <em>that</em> many of them?”</p><p>“It may just be the way the maintenance shafts work,” Garrus replied, flicking his light into Kolyat’s squinting eyes. He could see the navy blue irises behind the black lenses on the Drell. “The sectors are not all straight and narrow. They follow mining tunnels from centuries ago.”</p><p>“Makes sense to build the shafts following the mines,” Wrex said. “Once dug through the rock, they would have built reinforcing structures to keep it from collapsing in, and then the piping would have been placed once the mine was emptied of its value. Thane,” he called into the tinted darkness of his vision, whiter highlights of edges and frames giving him a static formation of objects and motions, "you find a way to the next transit point. I’ll tell Lana we’re about to leave.”</p><p>“No,” Thane called back. “Two stay with Lana. Either you or Kolyat may come with me, but I will be quicker on foot alone.”</p><p>He hesitated long enough for Wrex to nod at Kolyat in Garrus’s visor glare, and as Kolyat climbed down from the gridwork above, Lana’s voice called again through the hole.</p><p>“The door’s opening!”</p><p>They felt the rumble of the inner gears releasing the great seal.</p><p>“Tell Thane I’m going ahead because the water level’s rising and I need out! I’ll keep my com open, but be careful because who knows what's listening! And the Adjutant I found was laying eggs! There's bound to be more!”</p><p>“We saw two already,” Wrex said. “Alright, Lana, go. We’ll keep up and track you from here.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0058"><h2>58. Chapter 58</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana turned on her boot and bare foot through rising water that was already at the top of her ankles. The methane and noxious aromas had aired some with the release of the door in front of her, and as the seam in the top began to quickly reveal, Lana felt air, darkness, and fear of running into a Hell she had no other light for besides her Savant’s. The detritus on the bottom of the tunnel became soft again with rehydration, and Lana hated the feeling of her bare foot on the sewer scum. The sooner she found an exit, the better, and though she hated to have to leave the comforting voices of competence and friends behind, she knew that to linger would spell doom for her, and possibly worse for David.</p><p>She had fled Earth thinking she would never see him again, but knowing that Thane had ordered for his retrieval, something was spurred in her to fight even harder for the reunification with her son. Maybe, maybe, she should have listened to Thane in the very beginning, and brought David along. . . But how was she to know? How was she to know that the life she’d been forced to live these past three years was for anything besides putting up the façade in order to delude and catch a Spectre?</p><p>She despised herself for having been so weak. She was a victim of hope and lies. Lies because of what Clarke had told her. Hope because she had gone along with trying to make things seem true. To accept what was being done to her in the name of the Alliance. . . In the name of Project Foundation. All to catch a Spectre.</p><p>And what was the Misrephoth-Maim all about? She’d never even heard the name, and she had broken encryption on most of Will’s computer files, but found no mention of it.</p><p>Why did they want David and her, only to toss her away? What was the intention behind the humiliation, keeping her on Earth, making Will and she live a lie, create a life, and dismiss her as expendable? Who was this Wrex and why was he helping David Anderson. . . And Kaidan Alenko?</p><p>Something had to have come from Eden Prime, not just Nihlus’s death, or Jenkins’s. Not from just a beacon, which she could still sometimes remember; other times, not even be aware of. . . She’d been discharged officially from the Alliance, but she’d never been told or informed of what they’d had to do to help her to survive after the beacon’s collapse. She knew she’d been hurt and very badly. <em>It was touch and go</em>, she remembered Clarke saying. She knew she had been told that no one would explain why she had triggered the beacon to respond to her the way it had. And though she somewhat assumed that the reason for her being punished by Project Foundation was in part due to her allegations against Saren, the man, Powell, who had died, Nihlus, the beacon, the visions. . . What else? What else did they want from her that made her so valuable and yet such a threat? Why was William intent on killing her? Why had Garrus shown up the night David had been taken away? Was Garrus even supposed to be here? Was he part of a mission? But hadn’t he been investigating Saren, subsequently fired? What had Garrus said? What had Will to say to Garrus on the Citadel’s vat docks? <em>Lack of professionalism. . . Disgraced like Lana. . . Released. . .</em></p><p>But if she was such a threat, or at least a nuisance, to Saren. . . What was Garrus? What was he? And why weren’t they hunting him, too?</p><p>She was thinking, running, and decided this was no way to find herself out of a tunnel. She set her ears forward, to listen for any changes in the environment ahead.</p><p>“Priorities, Lana, priorities,” she said to herself.</p><p>“What’s that?”</p><p>Her omnitool picked up Thane’s voice. Lana smiled. So she wasn’t alone.</p><p>“Just musing out loud and keeping focused.”</p><p>She could hear his breathing.</p><p>“There is a juncture up ahead. I can see a door handle leading into some container that may or may not give me access to the sewer below, but look up and prepare for me if I can access—“</p><p>“Uh, Thane?” Lana stared downwards, though she couldn’t see anything.</p><p>The rush of water suddenly rose up passed her knees.</p><p>“The water’s rising faster. . . How far ahead are we talking?”</p><p>She began to have to slog and march in the rapid water, pushing and urging her to go along with it. She could smell smoke, probably from the water putting out the flames of Will’s incendiary. And steam, both warm and cool, dampening her back.</p><p>“About eighteen meters. I’m watching your marker and you’re right below me.”</p><p>Thane bounded across a section of piping and made faster towards the raised vestibule with the door. It looked to be seven feet tall, cylindrical and wide with foreign signage and rusted metal. The words KEEP OUT were written in incomprehensible characters.</p><p>He heard a purling growl far off down the tunnel, and slowed his steps, realizing in his haste that he’d been pounding along the metal rails of some track catering to the pipes below, which had been changing widths as they went farther away from the middle of the station.</p><p>Garrus, Wrex, and Kolyat were keeping up behind, his son ahead of the others as before. Garrus’s visor light was bumping and shaking off walls, interrupted by pipes, distracting as ever. Wrex had heard the sound of the Adjutants and was preparing himself to have to fight. He pulled out his heavy gun and touched the hilt of his knife for assurance that it was ready and where it could be called upon. Garrus pushed his rifle behind him, keeping it secure to his back by the strap. Kolyat scented the air and kept his eyes about him, seeking any early sign of attack.</p><p>“Lana, you’re coming up to the vestibule we’re heading for. See if you can find an outlet down there.”</p><p>“Going to be short on time, Thane,” Lana’s voice cracked through the omnitool. “I’ve got a feeling things are picking up speed and I’ve got nothing to hold onto.”</p><p>Down below, she needed to slow to a cautious walk, keeping her omnitool above the waist high water, which was stealing at her purchase with the floor of the tunnel. Lana accessed an app on her omnitool that she used for typing notes. She used the bright screen to help her see, and aimed it at the ceiling, and along the arching walls. She hoped she wouldn’t find something unpleasant.</p><p>Up ahead and on the right, she did see an access main.</p><p>Wading against the straight push of the water flow, she gradually made it to the wall and felt along with her free hand, holding the omnitool up to light her way.</p><p>“Thane, I think I see a way out. Is this close to that vestibule you were talking about?”</p><p>Thane pulled up short of the door and set to work testing it. He found it open and looked cautiously inside.</p><p>“You’re a little behind me, Lana, but yes, I think so. The door is unlocked. There are stairs. I am coming down to see you.”</p><p>The water rose higher on her waist. Something sharp brushed against her bare foot and she’d soon rather forget what was coming down the sewer drain.</p><p>“I’m coming for you, Siha.”</p><p>“What did you call me?” she asked, feeling along the pipe.</p><p>“Siha.” He hesitated, then smiled. “It means warrior angel. . . And you are mine.”</p><p>This claim of her over their coms made Lana grin.</p><p>“You know how to make a gal feel good even when she’s soaked as a frog.”</p><p>Thane grinned, too. “I look forward to drying you, again, after a hot shower.”</p><p>“Would you two—“ Garrus cut in through his omnitool. “You know we can hear you. Save your breath, Lana, in case the water rises. I can hear it from here.”</p><p>He was right. Lana wanted to curse the Turian for eavesdropping still.</p><p>The water was cold and had risen to her chest by the time she reached the main. It was an emergency outlet in case the sewer had to be drained, but she was not aware of the drop on the other side.</p><p>Thane walked down the stairs and stopped at the mesh edge just before the access wheel. It would require force to turn, he imagined, judging from the rust and how old plumbing often needed extra willpower and strength (and tools). He gave it a tentative hug, then applied some more force. Ungiving, the wheel was, so he put his strength to it and it started to turn. Thane’s muscles strained under the garb of his arms and back. His chest tightened as he pushed in a clockwise direction, eyeing the arrows to turn the device whichever way was to open or close. He could not read the writing, but the characters were familiar and he registered the hint that down and right was to open.</p><p>“Lana,” Thane said through his efforts, “can you access a wheel or lever on the other side?”</p><p>“I can try. My footing sucks right now, but I’ll see what I can do. It’s a wheel, by the way. Which way are you turning?”</p><p>“My right,” Thane said as the light from Garrus’s visor shown down into the vestibule, which was no small place, at least depth wise.</p><p>Lana gasped as she turned left on the wheel, trying to use her weight to help, but all she could do was float in the water as it reached her armpits and began to carry her feet off the floor of the tunnel. The wheel was immersed partly in water already, and would become slippery from being wettened by her hands.</p><p>“Thane, the water’s making it impossible for me to get any purchase. You got a Krogan in there? Get him to open the door.”</p><p>Her teeth began to chatter from the cold in the sewer.</p><p>Thane was staring at the deep, heart palpitating blackness beneath his mesh step that Garrus’s light waved slowly over to reveal.</p><p>“That would make this an exit pipe you found, Thane. All the water behind that seal will empty out into here, and if you don’t catch Lana, she’ll go with it.”</p><p>There was room on the mesh ledge for them to fit at least Wrex and Kolyat in addition to Thane. Holding onto his father’s arm, Kolyat grabbed Garrus’s while the Turian braced against the rail of the stair above the bottom landing. Wrex gripped the wheel and started to resume its turning.</p><p>“You better catch her, Thane.”</p><p>“I will,” Thane said in response, ”or I’ll go with her.”</p><p>“You’d better not,” Kolyat growled in reply.</p><p>The ease with which the Krogan turned the wheel of the main was astonishing, and thoroughly welcome. It meant Lana would be out sooner, but they had to make sure to help her not be forced over the rail of the foot ledge for accessing the water.</p><p>“Lana, there is a drop on the other side. Wrex is opening the hatch. Be ready to reach for me.”</p><p>“Thane, I hate to break it to you, but I’m—”</p><p>She raised her chin, holding onto the top of the wheel and speaking up at the Savant.</p><p>“I’m holding on for dear life right now. The water’s almost halfway above the hub. I’m going to hold on, but you’ll have to pull me in. If I let go—“</p><p>“We’re planning on it,” Wrex rumbled, turning and pulling as the lock clicked free and having no more turns left. Wrex braced to haul open the hatch lid. “Here we go!”</p><p>The hatch swung open, pinning Wrex against the wall and pulling Lana with it as the water surged forth from behind, seeking to be freed and to follow the new outlet. Lana had no sight besides what her omnitool and the blue light of Garrus’s sudden visor let her glimpse as her hands were wrenched free by the spill of water over her head.</p><p>She hit something, hard and thin against her back, and sucking water up her nose, Lana flipped surreally in the dark and flashing lights. She couldn’t even scream, there was so much water in her mouth. She had lost all sense of orientation, what with being pushed and thrown by the surging sewer. Lana closed her eyes, flailing to seek hold of something, anything, and just as her fingertips brushed what felt like an edge, something hot and strong latched around her arm as she continued to fall.</p><p>And jerked to a stop with several hundred pounds of water pouring over her head.</p><p>“Wrex!” Thane shouted. “Close the hatch!” He was terrified her neck was broken.</p><p>Lana couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t get a grip, and she was slowly losing consciousness. All she could do was hang and pray through dimming awareness that whoever had caught hold of her would not let go. She didn’t know where her new direction would lead, or if she would be alive in the next ten seconds. The incessant pounding of the drainage was knocking her senseless. Blackness was already in her vision, but a darkness was filling her head. Thane growled as he pulled her against the rob of blackness and death and up towards safety and life. Aching from the strain of the crushing water at his back and seeking to rob him of his precious grip on her forearm, he tugged at Kolyat to help pull Lana up at the end of his arm. He swore he would not let go.</p><p>“Lana!” He tried to call to her, to see if she could hear. He felt the indent of a fingernail on the side of his wrist. Turning his face back to Kolyat, he growled, “Haul me back from the ledge! I’ve got her!” The finger kept twitching, scratching at his wrist.</p><p>“Dad, start stepping back with me,” Kolyat shouted over the storm of the drainage pipe they were inside, his vision making out the figure under the spray of the water at Thane’s hand. He could see her head twisted against her chest, unable to resist the force. “Wrex! Shut the door!”</p><p>The Krogan snarled, pushing back against the lid and being jerked back against the wall. He leaned forward and drove with his shoulders first, then his massive chest, followed by one foot, purchasing what he could on the mesh which was shuddering with the water. Thane felt the fingernail’s absence on his wrist, and struggling not to believe she was out, pulled with all his might on his arm and hers against the spray. <em>Come to me, siha! I’ve got you! Stay with me a few more seconds!</em> he prayed.</p><p>“Wrex! <em>Push</em>!”</p><p>“I’m trying!” he growled.</p><p>Holding fast to Kolyat, Thane tread backwards out of the spray, hoping her arm would not rip from her shoulder. Lana’s body looked fragile and limp. Wrex tried as hard as he could to close the seal to the sewer drain, mitigating the force of the purge.</p><p>“Kolyat!” Garrus shouted over the roar. “Do you have your father?”</p><p>“Got him!”</p><p>“Hold on then! I’m moving up the stairs!”</p><p>As Wrex eked the door closed, inch by forgiving inch, Garrus locked his boot in the bottom of the rail by which a part of some inches allowed him to toe in and hold fast, moving his other arm opposite Kolyat’s grip higher and pulling as the young Drell officer pulled back up, step by step by step. And Thane went, moving backwards, holding with his right arm to Lana’s cold skin.</p><p>“More! She’s coming!”</p><p>“Hatch. . . Is. . . <em>Closing</em>!” the Krogan bellowed. With a second roar, Thane felt the water on his arm and back lessen as Wrex slammed the hatch shut and twisted the wheel several times to secure the sewer in its vault. Lana looked like a rag doll hanging from Thane’s arm, her head limp and to the side.</p><p>“Get her up! Get her out! Up here, onto the floor!”</p><p>Kolyat grabbed at her as Thane helped to lift her up. Taking her from his father, for he knew the signs of a drowning victim from various incidents in the lakes on the Citadel, Kolyat rushed up to the confusing darkness and laid her down outside the door of the vestibule, where he began to administer CPR, which he had learned from the Humans that had benefacted C-Sec with the life saving skill. He tilted her chin up, felt for a missing pulse, and pressed his skin to her nose, feeling no air being moved. Touching her forehead and lifting her jaw, he settled his lips over her mouth while he pinched her nostrils closed.</p><p>And breathed for her.</p><p>He breathed a second time, pushing air into her lungs until he felt her chest rise, and tilting his face away, he listened. Nothing. He pinched her nostrils again, secured his lips to her mouth, and pushed in another deep breath from his lungs. Her chest lifted. Fell. And again, he repeated. Ignoring everything around him but the woman he was trying to revive, he clasped his fists over her sternum, and careful, pushed down thirty times in rapid succession.</p><p>“Come on, Lana.”</p><p>He bent back to her face, checked for a pulse, checked for air, covered her mouth and her nose, and breathed for her a fifth time. And a sixth.</p><p>He pulled away as she spasmed beneath him, convulsing upward. Kolyat rolled her onto her side, to help the water spill out from her lungs. He patted her back, rubbing her shoulder, then pulled her up into his arms to wrap his coat around and to warm her. Her skin had been so cold when he’d kissed her with his breath of life. Holding still and sighing with relief, Kolyat looked to his father in the darkness of the shaft. He had never felt so proud for having saved someone. Someone who certainly deserved a second chance.</p><p>And Thane was proud, too, as he sat there on a pipe beside them, admiring his son, waiting for Lana to regain herself, so tired and spent. Garrus put his gauntlet on Thane’s shoulder and looked to Wrex as the big Krogan filled the doorway of the vestibule and narrowed his red eyes in the blue light.</p><p>“I take it she’s been resuscitated,” he rumbled, relieved.</p><p>“Thanks,” a small voice managed to say from the darkness at Kolyat’s arms.</p><p>Lana coughed again, and trembled.</p><p>Thane looked up at the sound of claws scratching pipes at the end of the shaft. They were not out yet, he realized, slowly standing away from the subtle vibrations he had felt in the pipe he’d been resting upon.</p><p>“Garrus, get your charge ready. We may have to test this electrical theory out against those Adjutants.”</p><p>Attracted to the sound and commotion, the blue pixy lights had come back, inquisitive, and the rumbling threat that purled through the darkness ahead of them was enjoined by Wrex’s issuing welcome.</p>
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<a name="section0059"><h2>59. Chapter 59</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana’s eyes snapped open. She needed to get up. Death was calling.</p><p>Sopping wet, she struggled out of Kolyat’s comfortable heat and Drell scent of leather mixed with spice, much like his father’s, and jumped to her feet, taking everyone by surprise. She was not about to die from an Adjutant attack after surviving being doused by tons of water. She had been rescued by Thane and the others, and now it was time to rescue them.</p><p>Threading out dark energy, even though she was tired, she cast a wall of barrier towards the slowly bobbing lights.</p><p>“They like it,” she said. “It’s like dark energy candy to them. They’ll be more interested in eating it for a time, which we should use to back up and get the Hell out of here.”</p><p>“I’m kind of looking forward to this fight,” Wrex rumbled, watching the light of the dark energy build and waver towards the closing blue pixies. They saw the first blue flower bloom, and this time saw an orifice round and wide emerge from where the pistils would have been, inquisitive towards the detection of Lana’s dark energy.</p><p>“It took me and Aria together to lift one and barely get it out of the Well. They’re scary motherfuckers. I don’t want to hang around and meet another, never mind two, or four. Let’s go. Start backing up slow and don’t cause a greater commotion. Real quiet now, real soft like. Move with us, Wrex. . . Please.”</p><p>“If you insist,” the Krogan replied deep, highly disappointed this time. But he followed after Lana, Garrus, Thane, and Kolyat, moving backwards and cautiously feeling about.</p><p>Lana felt herself picked up and carried in someone’s arms.</p><p>“Kolyat,” Thane hissed.</p><p>Lana stilled.</p><p>“I’m just making sure she doesn’t make a sound. She’ll trip or something, and besides, I can see better.”</p><p>“Let me carry her.”</p><p>“Would you stop fighting and get a move on!” Garrus hissed.</p><p>Lana felt her passed from two strong arms into another. She felt Thane’s lips on her mouth, briefly, letting her know it was he who was holding her as he whispered how relieved he was that Kolyat had saved her.</p><p>“I think you all had a hand.”</p><p>“No, maybe,” he whispered, keeping his eyes up and about. “But Kolyat knew the CPR, which I know little of, considering my line of work.”</p><p>“Something about being an assassin?”</p><p>“Dae said something to you, didn’t he.”</p><p>“Maybe a word or two.”</p><p>The dark shaft echoed with the soft scratches and purls, trills of a lively nature rendering a false sense of peace, but also giving Lana chills. <em>What were they?</em> she wondered of the Adjutants.</p><p> </p><p>At the entrance to the maintenance shaft Thane, Kolyat, and the others had went through, four Alliance soldiers waited with their guns held high and keeping the recent arrival of black clad M-M guards from entering the shaft. Will had not heard yet that his crew of Turian counterparts were down below Afterlife, waiting for a chance to scoop in on a reward by taking out Lana Shephard, the rumor being she was still alive in the tunnels.</p><p>“You value your lives, boys and girls,” the Turian in charge of the three behind her said, “you’ll let us go in and inspect that maintenance shaft. I can see one of you has already managed to break the doors down. So what are you hiding?”</p><p>Falco Draken looked surreptitiously between the men wearing N7 marine uniforms over bulky armor. They looked like officers, their colors gold and blue.</p><p>“Sorry, ma’am,” one of the officers said, holding his rifle pointed slightly away from the Turian. “We have orders to man this position and make sure no one comes or goes. If you don’t mind, ma’am, move along.”</p><p>“You do realize that the station is being sequestered for Alliance control, yes?” she asked, reverberating her flanged voice through her clasped mandibles.</p><p>“Yes, ma’am. And you will understand that we personally don’t give a fuck.”</p><p>The Alliance division was real.</p><p>“You want Lana Shephard,” someone among the Turians said, with an adjustment of her rifle.</p><p>Kaidan Alenko knew he was dealing with the Cabals that were employed by Saren for William Clarke’s personal use as separate, independent agents for acquiring assets as well as victims.</p><p>“You don’t have to pretend with us,” Falco said, fluttering her mandibles in an amicable raise of structure. “We knew you would come for her eventually.”</p><p><em>I need barriers up now</em>, Kaidan signed to his squad of men and women. The glow of dark energy filled in their square, encompassing them as it expanded outwards.</p><p>Falco’s placido spread in a vicious grin.</p><p>“You really want to challenge a bunch of cabal Turians?” Falco charged her armor and had her gun already primed. “Cabal! Prepare to engage!” She grinned Turian fangs from her girelda wickedly. “We’ll see just how tight the Corsairs stick to their skills. Attack!”</p><p>Kaidan forced back the impending assault by jarring the cabal with his detonation of the barrier, then launched a projectile of dark energy at Falco’s right flank, hoping she would dodge that way first. She feinted, but lunged left, firing off her own biotic response and hitting the barrier Kaidan threw up to protect him and his team.</p><p>“You’re good,” Falco said begrudgingly, “but how fast can you keep up with me?” She launched two more projectiles as the others of her cabal sought refuge behind walls and began to purge their gunnery at the backing up squad from the Normandy.</p><p>“Hold the line!” Kaidan commanded. “Take steps back in unity, starting when I say three. One, two, three!”</p><p>They all stepped back together into the shaft.</p><p>“Traynor! Move the doors into place! Vega! Seal them!”</p><p>“Yes, sir!”</p><p>As Kaidan held the wall of protection up for his men and women, Traynor, a biotic coms specialist, levered the door into place, followed by the other. Vega began to seal with a soldering omnitool while the cabal opened fire on the remaining hole, hoping to wear down Kaidan’s barrier.</p><p>Falco cursed loudly as the second door was righted, grinding into place with a dismal slam by the biotic Samantha Traynor.</p><p>“That should keep them out for a while,” Kaidan said as Vega and Traynor worked together to keep the doors in place and seal them in. He sighed and dismissed his barrier. “Let’s hope we can find an alternate means of getting out of here. Traynor, when you’re done, call Anderson and Wrex. Tell them we are in the maintenance shaft and we have hostiles on the outside. A cabal of four. Tell him that. Ash, with me. Let’s go ahead and scope out the next twenty yards, okay?”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Ashley Williams replied through her head com. She wore a heavy armor, slightly off hue from the rest of them, and darker, for she was their straight eye sniper. A heavy package was folded up at her waist, on her back, ready for use. Other than the long range rifle which was contracted into its storage form, she was comfortable with a short range shotgun, which she held in her grip.</p><p>Their com units on their HUDs all lit with incoming traffic. Amid the static and fray of some noise of attack, Lana’s unmistakable barking of orders were clear to Kaidan’s ears before Wrex’s deep voice filled in the channel, but he didn’t block out the noise of something inhuman and very real in the background.</p><p>“We’ve got Adjutants in the tunnel coming toward you. Going to need some form of electrical weaponry aside from bullets and biotics to fight these things. Anyone there at the mouth of the tunnel? Over.”</p><p>“Wrex,” Kolyat’s voice was picked up by the com, “there’s two over there. Watch your three.”</p><p>“Got it.”</p><p>Kaidan activated the speaker. “Wrex, Alenko here. We’re inside the tunnel. We had to seal it up. M-M cabal outside waiting to get in. You got everything covered? We come to you or you come to us? Over.”</p><p>The com crackled and there was the sound of something sizzling, followed immediately by a pained roar. Someone yelled a curse word and more gunshots went off.</p><p>“Alenko. We’ll come to you once we break off. See if you can find a plan out of this place. This area’s riddled with Adjutants. We’ve got Shephard, by the way, me and two Drell, a Turian. That makes five.”</p><p><em>I can hear her</em>, Kaidan thought with a smile. He adjusted his armor and zipped down his coat, removing from his back a new rifle that he had been hiding as they’d made their way in under the pretense of having a search warrant for a criminal that needed collection by their agency, the Corsairs Tactical Ops.</p><p>“Tell Lana I say hello, and get your asses here. Fast. We’ll be waiting with a nice remedy. Over.”</p><p>He checked the status of the rifle, a 3P Atom Convertor with three pulse control and electrical charges.</p><p>“Ready when you are, baby.” To the others, he instructed them to prepare to alternate fire with the Adjutants pending down the shaft ahead. “And Vega, plot us a course through this maze. We need to get back to the Normandy before the Misrephoth-Maim finds her.”</p><p>“I’m going to link into the station’s codex, but consider it done,” the young corporal said, adding a courteous “Sir” at the end.</p><p>Kaidan grinned. He was relieved that at least he had his men and women around him, and that Lana was with Wrex. Now they only had to unite and find their way out against Adjutants and Omega.</p>
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<a name="section0060"><h2>60. Chapter 60</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>William Clarke, a general of the Misrephoth-Maim, an educated attorney made major for his audit and revealing investigation into the Corsairs, and forensics manipulator who could make any story seem true, walked among his men leading the Adjutant to the ship. He had seen it before, and like the Patriarch, written it off as a profitless deal. But having learned better from the progress he saw the Adjutant having made since its release onto Aria’s little pebble in the galaxy, he was impressed and thought Saren, Salvatore, <em>Salvation</em>, would find himself pleased with the gift he had to bring.</p><p>Aiolos came up next to him to issue the news.</p><p>“Falco’s cabal found a troupe of four Corsairs down by what they call the pit. There’s a maintenance shaft. They were protecting it.”</p><p>“From what?” Will blinked at his second, a smile curving a corner of his mouth. “Rats? Vorcha? The rest of the populace of Omega?”</p><p>“We think they are trying to get Shephard.”</p><p>“Well, she’s in the tunnels now.” Will said curtly. “If the incendiary didn’t send her off, and the water didn’t drown her, she’ll have Adjutants to finish her, by the looks of it.” He nodded to the ghastly creature ahead, flinching under charges attached to its body. “Or she’ll be flushed down a sewer and out into the abyss.” He looked at his second, making note of the show of concern. “Come now, Aiolos. You’re not getting soft on me, are you? You hardly knew her.”</p><p>“Sir, just as a precaution, might I recommend we station people at the entrances to the shafts?”</p><p>“Sure! There’s plenty! And if you want, why don’t you clear out the rest of Omega? Start boarding everyone onto the ship. Contain them in the lower sphere. And bring along any survivors from the plague. Isolate them in the containers, of course. Salvatore will want to know the results of that. . . And Aiolos?”</p><p>The man with the limp beside him, still nursing a hurt rib, looked up at his general through the oily sheen of his replaced visor.</p><p>“Sir?”</p><p>“If you do find my ex-wife, make sure you kill her, but in front of the Drell. He seems to have a soft spot for helpless women.” Will grinned. “Oh, and bring the Turian to me. We’ll need that one. As for the Corsairs, I assume they fled into the maintenance shaft?”</p><p>Aiolos nodded.</p><p>“Good. Excellent. Let the Adjutants take care of them, too. Their biotics will be useless against such creatures, as we have learned. Carry on.”</p><p>The troops ahead of him followed more into the platform that would lower down and join with the massive ship, the Misrephoth-Maim, which resembled a cudgel. Between the handle and head of that seeming cudgel, the Dyson Sphere was protected by a wall of armor, reinforced with kinetic barrier, and aligned with guns the size of small cities.</p><p>The Adjutant flipped its tail and roared sullenly at the men guarding it, its pink tentacles having changed color in the bright light of the ship beaming on it and tractoring the platform to itself.</p><p>Aiolos went about his duty, taking one glance at Will as the man boarded a second platform and returned to command the ship. The collection of Omega could commence without his having to raise a finger, now that Aiolos was steadfastly in charge of the station. He set to work, calling the cabals and the guards to him and issuing orders to secure the maintenance exits.</p><p>“Take as many agents as you can and make sure that Lana Shephard does not get off Omega. And check the bays for the Villetta, General Accius’s former property. We can at least detain it for him. Anyone aboard it, kill.”</p><p> </p><p>Lana bit back another wave of fear as a body came thumping down the tunnel towards them. Fortunately it was Wrex, and he reeked of Adjutant filth.</p><p>“That should hold them off for a little bit. They seem pretty pissed. How are you holding up?”</p><p>“I can’t see anything, and I’m useless against these things. So, no, I’m not holding up and I’m fucking helpless.”</p><p>The Krogan rumbled laughter in the dark.</p><p>“Where’s Thane and Kolyat?”</p><p>“They led the others away. Garrus is here though. Two useless people.”</p><p>“Speak for yourself.”</p><p>“I can see him. Turians are nearsighted and need daylight. Krogan eyes like mine enjoy the dark and the light.”</p><p>“Good for you. Now can we get out of here? I prefer not to have to wait around to be eaten or mauled,” Garrus chuffed irritably. Good will aside, he’d arranged himself among the pipes they had had to hide in while they awaited Wrex. His visor light had encouraged the Adjutants to pursue rather than explore the vestibule drain where Lana had been freed from. Unable to fight without seeing what they were striking at, Lana and Garrus sat huddled together, forced to use only a few charges administered from the Turian’s omnitool, which had helped deter the Adjutants somewhat. Then Thane and Kolyat had drawn off two more of the beasts. Wrex handled the rest with his heavy gun and a fast knife.</p><p>“Thane said they’d circle back if they could, but we’re to keep going and join up with your friends.”</p><p>“Then come out and let’s go. There’s a pipe here for you to hold onto and follow. Don’t turn on your light.” He grabbed Garrus’s gauntlet and fixed it to the tube that was running halfway up from the floor of the shaft. He did this, too, with Lana’s hand, who felt her arm disappear into the rough, wet grip of Wrex’s glove. “Follow this. It will lead us straight back. I may have to turn and fight, but you two should be able to go on and catch up with Alenko.”</p><p>“Alenko? As in Kaidan Alenko?” Lana asked, surprised. . . And somewhat relieved that they would have such a powerful biotic, and capable one, at their side.</p><p>“Yep, he’s here. Along with three others by the sound of their coms. They know you’re coming. All of us. Now let’s go. Feel the floor out. There was one big drop up ahead that you’ll have to hug the wall for and find the ledge to cross over. Hold on tight to the pipe when you do. It supported my weight at least.”</p><p>“Mine too,” Garrus said, “so it should be easy for you, Shephard.”</p><p>“Great. Looking forward to it.”</p><p>“Don’t fall, whatever you do,” Wrex’s deep voice chuckled. Gripping his blade in one hand, Wrex turned and shuffled along sideways through the tunnel, keeping his ears forward their progress, and to the rear. His chest and back were protected by the walls and thick metal armor. He felt the number of cartridges still at his disposal, attached to a hip. He fingered three of the oblong cartridges. He had had to use five already. <em>They’re tough, those Adjutants,</em> he thought. <em>Good weapons if they can be used as such, but I don’t doubt someone’s already tried that.</em></p><p>A way’s ahead, Lana heard, or detected, a smidge of movement. It was more a feeling than something she actually heard. She hissed at Garrus, close behind her, but not so close they could touch.</p><p>“What is it?” he whispered, the flange not so much present.</p><p>“I think someone’s coming,” she whispered back.</p><p>Gripping the pipe, she felt forward, moving step by step sideways.</p><p>“Thane?” she called. “Kolyat?”</p><p>Garrus could feel the vibrations through the sliding of her hands along the pipe. He turned his head away to see if he could smell for Wrex and guess how far back he was.</p><p>“What’s going on?” Wrex said, glancing ahead to see Kolyat walking towards Lana. He shook his hump. <em>Always was a sly one.</em></p><p>Warm heat covered her mouth and she sucked inwards with surprise. What she thought were Thane’s fingers dancing over her lower back were welcomed as she leaned her head forwards into the kiss. Compared to the cold wetness and dark, the passion in the tunnel was welcome. Though he’d surprised her, Lana kissed hungrily back, wanting that heat to endure and to take her mind off their surroundings. But as the tongue dove into her mouth, Lana realized something was off. The lips felt firmer. The spice tasted sharper. The tongue, thicker, harder. . .</p><p>Lana tentatively felt his clothing with her right hand.</p><p>“<em>Kolyat!”</em> she snarled, tightening her fist into the sleeve of his uniform, bunching up and pulling down so she could line him up with a kick to his scrotum. Kolyat tilted, but deflected her foot, then as he snickered, twisted away.</p><p>“That’s the fee for being revived,” he whispered. “And you’re welcome, although I should say <em>thank you.</em>” He would have added a wink were it not for the dark, but he could see Lana’s furor etched on her elegant face. His chuckling faded as he went ahead to find his father.</p><p>Lana simmered while Garrus continued to pester her with questions about what had just happened. Wrex was too amused to say anything, and understood the telltale silence of a very embarrassed Human.</p><p>As Kolyat walked down the tunnel, still ruminating over his steal, he missed the boot that came out, tripping him.</p><p>Thane would not let his son fall, but he would not let him get away with kissing Lana either, though he had to admit he admired the tactic used. It gave him ideas for what he could do with Lana later, if circumstances provided the appropriate conditions in which to experiment and play.</p><p>Catching his son by the shoulder, he righted Kolyat from his falling.</p><p>“Kolyat—highly inappropriate. Don’t,” he warned his son, “do it again.”</p><p>“Hey, easy, Dad. . . It was only a peck,” he lied, thinking of how deeply Lana had kissed him back.</p><p>“Off with you. . . Scofflaw.”</p><p>Thane gave him a gentle push to carry on down the tunnel, away from the direction in which they’d lost the Adjutants. He chuckled. Kolyat had ever been a ladies’ man. And he was young, alive.</p><p>Compared to how Thane could have found him had he not arrived in time to reunite with Kolyat.</p><p>He would rather deal with his son’s current sense of scandal than what could have been without Thane’s timely intervention. As he gazed down the shaft towards Lana, however, Thane noticed the furious set to her jaw, the killer look in her eyes. She, evidently, was neither as thrilled nor forgiving as either Kolyat or Thane, respectively.</p>
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<a name="section0061"><h2>61. Chapter 61</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The pipe began to bend left, indicating a turn in the shaft. Lana’s pants felt heavy and her foot, grimy, from being bare in both sewer and now cloying dust. She wanted a shower, but couldn’t bear the thought of being drenched in water again. Blinking in the dark, seeing if there was any difference between having her eyes closed and open (there was none and she was making a game of it), Lana began to step out more with her feet to gain a sense of what was ahead of her. Wrex had said a drop was somewhere near, but he was too far behind to see anything right before <em>she</em> found it.</p><p>A hand touched her shoulder just as her heel felt the cold air of nothing beneath, not even floor.</p><p>“We were waiting for you,” Thane’s unmistakable voice was heard before her.</p><p>Lana sighed with relief. She felt him cup her cheek, moving the hand from her shoulder. Now <em>this</em> was the touch she knew.</p><p>“Where’s your son?” she growled. “I’m going to kill him when I get back to the ship. No holds barred this time.”</p><p>Thane smiled in the darkness at her bluff, though she didn’t see.</p><p>She could hear the ready smile in his voice.</p><p>“I’ve already spoken to him. He can be. . .”</p><p>“A bit of a jerk. Yeah. We’re passed that point. Funny the Turian and him don’t get along one hundred percent.”</p><p>“Would you two move along?” Garrus grumbled, bumping up next to Lana. She felt the Turian’s armor graze her skin. “I want to get out of here. I’m tired of the dark and not being able to see anything. Let’s go.”</p><p>“There is a drop ahead, Garrus, but I think you may turn on your light for now. Just keep it brief, keep it low and to the ground. And move carefully, quickly, across the gap.”</p><p>The blue light shown, filling Lana’s vision with much needed information. She could see the shaft was badly damaged where they were. Something had made a hole in the wall, and a hole that led to a crack spanning the floor directly before Thane. There was refuse, dust, dirt, stains, grime, and old rags. She didn’t bother to think what was inside them once.</p><p>Moving after Thane, she crossed the ledge, holding tight to the wall and not looking at what could be underneath.</p><p>Until what was underneath came lunging up.</p><p>Lana’s biotics flared to life as she jumped down, into the hole of all places, having lost her footing and tumbling, half falling until she per chance gained a foothold on an old cabinet. It sounded loudly as she propelled herself off. Lana darted into a corner, seeing that she was in a room with a door to one side and a continuation of the crack from above that led into the wall opposite her. Also sitting opposite her was a small Vorcha, no big thing, but startling to see in the dark cell she was now in.</p><p>The eyes were different from what she’d observed of the other adults, what with their being wide and black. The features were not as jagged, and almost buttery soft looking in comparison to those spiny crests and rough hewn joints of the others. She guessed that if it stood from its squat, it would be no taller than a five-year-old, and would come up to her mid-thigh in height. She was tall, after all.</p><p>Lana’s heartbeat dropped a notch as she realized it was no threat and had grabbed for her perhaps out of curiosity or play. She did not know.</p><p>She looked up as Garrus leaned over and shown the light into the room from above. She squinted, shielding her eyes with her hands.</p><p>“Is that a Vorcha?” Garrus called down.</p><p>“Lana, are you alright?” Thane’s voice whispered.</p><p>“Lucky she didn’t break her neck,” Kolyat’s voice said.</p><p>“Or a leg.” Wrex.</p><p>“Yes, it’s a Vorcha, and, yes, I’m okay. Caught myself, thank God. It doesn’t seem to be afraid of me. How it’s in here, I don’t know.” She crawled forward on her hands and knees towards the youth and held out her hand as if it were a dog that needed to scent her greeting. “Hey,” she whispered softly. The Vorcha tilted its crest. “You scared me. . . I’m sorry if I scared you. . . Would you tell me what you’re doing in here and if you came in from another way?”</p><p>The Vorcha nodded its green skull, black eyes dark although the blue light from above shown off its thin stretched skin.</p><p>“My name Graine,” the Vorcha spoke shrilly.</p><p>Lana was impressed. It spoke without prompting. She smiled, but refrained from baring teeth in case this offended or threatened the child.</p><p>“My name is Lana,” she said, bobbing her head, hair damp and loose. “Graine, huh? Graine, can you get out of these tunnels? Is there a way in? And a way out?”</p><p>It, he, or she nodded. Lana couldn’t tell what the gender was, nor could she remember her lessons on whether Vorcha were dimorphous or not.</p><p>“If you were to come with us, could you show us a way out?”</p><p>This was assuming there was no exit available with Wrex. Lana liked to have a second plan, especially in a place as dismal as these maintenance tunnels.</p><p>The Vorcha pointed a small claw to the crack in the wall behind it, beyond the filing cabinet she had jumped off. There were two cabinets, in fact, one tilted and leaning against the other. If she were to guess, the Vorcha would have had to come easily through these, where the gap was widest. Lana called to the others above.</p><p>Thane was milling about, shifting from foot to foot, uncharacteristically nervous they were lingering too long. He heard Lana’s voice.</p><p>“FYI,” she called in a loud whisper, “there’s some opening down here through which this little guy came. Do you know if we can get out through the exit Wrex is leading us to?”</p><p>“The doors have been sealed,” Wrex said, rumbling over them. “We were planning on meeting up with the others from the Normandy, but you’re going to have to rely on finding a way out with them. And I don’t think we’ll be using the original exit by which me and your boys came in. What are you thinking?” he asked, suspicious, obviously deducing Lana’s intent. “I hope you’re not getting any ideas to go crawling around in small dark spaces with a Vorcha child no bigger than my thumb.”</p><p>“Hold on now,” Lana urged him, motioning for the Vorcha not to leave. She turned her face back up, brightened by Garrus’s light. She could only see part of the Turian’s face and armor. As for the rest, there were outlines in the dark. “Wrex, why don’t you go ahead with the others, meet up with Alenko, or call him here? Garrus, drop your visor to me.”</p><p>“Are you kidding me, lady?” Garrus chuffed.</p><p>Lana made a face and pointed at the visor, then down into her palm.</p><p>“Now.”</p><p>He growled, and grumbling, unhooked the visor from his horn, the light dancing about, and tossed it to her.</p><p>“You better not break it. Spirits, Shephard, you’ll owe me big time if you break it.”</p><p><em>Shut up, Garrus,</em> she thought, deciphering whether or not she could attach it to her ear. She decided not, so held the beacon up, pointing it at their faces and just to the side so as not to glare them.</p><p>“I’m going to follow this little guy and see what he knows. Maybe it’s a way out that Will or Aria won’t have a standing guard by, or more Adjutants.”</p><p>“Lana!” Thane hissed, leaning over the gap and bending to his knees. “Do <em>not</em> go crawling off into holes after a Vorcha.” He left unsaid that they couldn’t be trusted.</p><p>Lana scowled up at him. “I don’t think you guys have a better plan than to go wandering off through these tunnels filled with Adjutants!” she hissed back, angry. “And I’m sick of being in the dark and unable to help! So I am <em>going</em> with what <em>Fate</em> has presented me, which happens to be a Vorcha and a hole in the wall! I have <em>not</em> been given a lot of options today, and between being drowned, shot at, blown up, or beaten to death, possibly eaten alive, <em>I am going with the hole in the wall!”</em></p><p>“Lana,” Thane growled, “<em>please</em> be reasonable. You could get trapped and then we’d have no way to get to you. Or worse. I don’t care to think what else exists in these tunnels aside from Adjutants and small Vorcha children wandering about playing games.”</p><p>Lana looked up at him pleadingly. She understood his anxiety, but they really had little option.</p><p>“I <em>promise</em> I will be back.”</p><p>“Famous last words,” Kolyat said ominously.</p><p>Thane pushed him away and refocused on Lana.</p><p>“Let me go with you then.”</p><p>“No. This is recon. Stay with the others. Protect them. This guy has my back, right little fella?” she said to the Vorcha.</p><p>It smiled at her. The display of sharp little teeth did not make Lana feel so much better in her decision. <em>But you have to take the hand you’re dealt. </em>“Look, guys, I’m doing this. Get Alenko, wait for me here, and I’ll be back with word and hopefully an exit.”</p><p>She nodded to the Vorcha, took one last look at Thane, and shining the light between the filing cabinets, lighting the way, she got on her hands and knees to follow the child.</p><p>The crack yawned open into a crevice beyond the wall. Although she was crawling, Lana stopped to shine the light behind her, and having passed through the fractured hole, the filing cabinets hiding it, Lana found, so far, everything to her satisfaction. They would have to move the filing cabinets to let Wrex through, and if he removed his armor, he could squeeze in. She put her hands down, pushed herself up to stand, and holding the light ahead of the Vorcha, who was waiting for her with its chilling pools of black eyes, Lana followed it into the deathly silence of Omega’s underground.</p><p>Above, where the blackness was quick to replace the light, Garrus was heard breathing quietly, while the others contemplated Lana’s departure.</p><p>It was Wrex who broke the silence first.</p><p>“You’ve got to hand it to her,” he rumbled speciously. “Not a lot of females I know get ready to go on their hands and knees to follow Vorcha underground. We could have used her in the Rakhni wars,” he chuckled, then added in a good humor only to himself, “She’s certainly got a quad. . . Maybe two, in fact.”</p><p>Thane stared at the empty space where Lana had just been. They had found her, saved her life, and already she was missing again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0062"><h2>62. Chapter 62</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thane had had enough. He was not going to let Lana just disappear into the unknown with some child, no less a Vorcha.</p><p>“I’m going, Kolyat. Come with me. Garrus?”</p><p>Garrus growled low. “I just gave her my visor.”</p><p>“I’m going to contact Alenko,” Wrex rumbled, taking his com up and turning to hold a private conversation some few steps away. He called back over his broad shoulder. “Either way, we’ll probably be coming down through there.”</p><p>Thane nodded and stepped down into the crack in the floor, followed by Kolyat. Garrus hesitated on the edge of the space.</p><p>“I’ll wait until the others get here. I’m sick of running around sightless, and if it’s the Normandy folks in the shaft, they’re bound to have some lights.”</p><p>“Very well,” Thane said from the depth of the new room they stood in. He scanned about, noting the broken doorway, the old furniture, the filing bins. He motioned towards Kolyat, and they bent, moving the cabinets out of the way, and doing their best to move so carefully as not to make a sound.</p><p>Once that was done and the way clear, Thane looked into a gray void that took up the wall they faced.</p><p>He felt cool air from the mouth of the hole and held his hand up.</p><p>“There is fresh air down here. . . Relatively speaking. . . It seems to be moving.”</p><p>“I picked that up,” Kolyat replied, moving into the crack ahead of his father. “Must be a way out or some ventilation going on. Either way. . .”</p><p>“Be careful, Kolyat,” Thane said, touching his shoulder. “Mind your surroundings. Let’s see if we can catch up with Lana.”</p><p> </p><p>They were already down a level. Lana let the Vorcha and her light guide her, relatively at ease with being able to see once again.</p><p>The Vorcha was indifferent.</p><p>“So, uh, do you have. . . Parents?” Lana asked.</p><p>The Vorcha shook its head.</p><p>“Oh. Hmm. Do you have. . . Family?”</p><p>The Vorcha nodded.</p><p>“Do they know where you are?” Lana asked, perking up.</p><p>The Vorcha shook its head.</p><p>Lana sighed. <em>So much for small talk. </em>She minded her omnitool as they walked along in silence. Lana wasn’t quite sure if it would work now that she’d been blasted and drowned by water. The equipment was durable, but not water proof. Not entirely. She manipulated the tools on the display and only got static and a persistent buzz that made the Vorcha show some interest. Lana wondered if it would ever work again. She considered heating it gently in the Villetta’s stove.</p><p>Putting her hand into the Vorcha’s as it had reached up and grabbed her wrist, Lana walked with it through the tunnels of the new labyrinth they were in. The hand in her grip was rough yet soft, unlike holding hands with her son, but a mother took comfort in feeling needed, so she was happy to hold on and let the Vorcha guide her more especially. She flashed him once with the light of the visor. He had a pug little nose that she knew would fill out to make him, or her, hideous in due time. It amused her that it was a species that wouldn’t mind, and in fact would value turning more monstrous in its appearance. She pondered why this youth would be wandering about in the tunnels alone, who or what took care of it, and if they would be missing the child. She could not imagine abandoning him, her, it, if they made out only to find the child lacking a guardian of sorts. She also didn’t want to really raise or help raise a Vorcha. They were violent and, well, not so clever. But this one seemed alright. So far.</p><p>She felt bad for leaving Thane behind. He would be angry, like that time when she had first commandeered the Villetta and had left Thane and Garrus to entertain the Alliance guards. It amused her that the son, Kolyat, would have some connection with her ex-husband. Will’s reach seemed to be everywhere.</p><p>Lana shook the omnitool again, feeling a spray of water slap her face. She growled.</p><p>The Vorcha looked up at her, concerned by the noise she had made.</p><p>“Sorry. I’m just frustrated. Would you know, I just survived being drowned in a sewage pipe?”</p><p>The Vorcha bared its little teeth in a grisly smile. Lana chuckled at how ugly the creature was, but how endearing at the same time.</p><p>“If my omnitool still worked, I’d take a picture of you and me and show it to my son.”</p><p>“Graine son.”</p><p>She chuckled. “Of someone’s, but not mine.”</p><p>The Vorcha seemed to settle into itself, lost in thought.</p><p>“Yep,” Lana sighed, aiming the light ahead, “my son, who I left on Earth with his bastard henchman father. You know I thought he’d be safe? Now my new boyfriend, the handsome green Drell back there I’m sure you saw and heard calling me ‘clown’ in so many words, for crawling off with you into this place. . . He’s sending someone to steal my son back for me. . . Funny how things turn out.” She looked down at the Vorcha gazing up at her. “Do funny things ever happen to you? You know, situations where you plan one way, and get the other?”</p><p>The Vorcha held up its other claw, indicating for her to stop. Its eyes grew round and wide.</p><p>It pointed behind her. Lana turned.</p><p>“Thane, what are you doing here?”</p><p>Thane and Kolyat both emerged from a bend and approached the pair. Kolyat waved in a friendly manner to the Vorcha child, while Thane put his hand to Lana’s hair and gently bumped his head to hers.</p><p>“I didn’t want to lose you again. We’ve been lucky. I’d rather not strain our streak of fortune.”</p><p>“Some luck,” Lana replied. She raised an eyebrow. “Are the others coming?”</p><p>“They will follow. Wrex has a tracker on our omnitools. I take it yours is not working?”</p><p>She held her cuff up, and it dripped out water.</p><p>“Fancy you all alone down here,” Kolyat said, a wry smile on his face from the earlier kiss. “You have a quad, Wrex says.”</p><p>Lana swung the Vorcha’s hand distractedly.</p><p>“We would have come back. You two, at least, would be able to find your way out of here with just your vision and your smarts. I feel bad for Garrus now. I have his visor.”</p><p>“He will have more light once Wrex’s team reaches them,” Thane replied, touching her brow and adjusting a wet wrinkle in her hem. He moved it lower over the skin of her mid riff, and let his hand rest its warmth against her. She knew possession when she felt it, and by the look in his eyes reflecting the aura left by the visor’s light, she also knew he intended to keep her. <em>And to think this all started with a walk in the rain.</em> She smiled. She remembered the day he had introduced himself as Koshisigre Nupura and asked her those questions on their walk. That he had told her then he could bring her back to the fight, with her son even. . .</p><p>Out of the strain of sudden emotion weighing heavily on her since the cage fights, Lana threw her arms around him, and hid a sob. That there were people who would wish harm to her child she knew existed, but to have them threatening left and right was much, much, much for a mother to have to hear and bear, knowing she had made a grave mistake in leaving David behind.</p><p>“Easy there,” Thane said, rubbing her back and shoulders as she quivered against him. Her clothing was still wet.</p><p>Picking up the Vorcha’s hand again, she let him or her continue on into the tunnel, turning left, turning right, bending down to avoid a collapsed ceiling of mesh, concrete, wire, and climbing over stacked objects the likes of furniture, machines, desks, and something reminiscent of a former office. Lana hoped that Will, or Aria, or some other unpleasant surprise would not be waiting for them wherever Graine was leading them to.</p><p>“You know where you’re going, don’t you, Graine?” Lana asked as they came to a descending stair.</p><p>Graine nodded in the light. Lana tried not to shine it in his or her eyes. She should probably ask Thane if he knew whether or not Graine was male or female. For now, however, this was unimportant, and she did not have the wish to discuss the child’s gender in front of it.</p><p>“Does anyone know what time it is?” she asked instead.</p><p>“0600. It’s nearly morning on Omega,” Kolyat replied.</p><p>“Really? We’ve been down here all night?”</p><p>“Hard to tell when you’ve been in a sewer and in the shafts. Hopefully we’ll be out soon,” Thane said, rubbing her hand as they walked.</p><p>“David would be getting up around now. He’s a late sleeper,” Lana said of a sudden.</p><p>“That’s late?” Kolyat asked.</p><p>“For a toddler, who used to get up at 0430, that’s late,” she responded.</p><p>“What if you’re still sleeping?” Kolyat inquired, interested in how she raised her son. “Do you get up with him?”</p><p>“Of course. I have to. Either that, before Will left, he would give me an hour or two to take on the burden. It’s a lot of work, don’t get me wrong. I love my son, but there are times when you’re just so damn tired. . .”</p><p>She sighed, recalling the sleepless nights early on of breastfeeding, walking and talking to Davidin her arms if he were awake and not able to sleep. How Will would wordlessly come in, take David from her, and tell her that he would bottle feed David with what they had in the fridge. And then Lana would go to sleep, too exhausted to trouble over the game they were playing, and to stress about what it would all mean for David.</p><p>Kolyat looked at his father, and wondered if that had been what it was like for he and his mother.</p><p>Lana stifled a yawn. Having Thane’s warmth beside her was deludingly calming. She felt more at ease, despite her cloying wetness and dank clothing, her hair that was heavy on her neck, and a lip, she realized, that was slightly swollen from being hit by the giant oaf in the first cage round. Funny, she could barely hear Thane or Kolyat breathing as they walked alongside and behind her.</p><p>
  <em>Ah, what the Hell.</em>
</p><p>Lana slipped her hand from Thane’s and put it around his waist with her arm, walking tighter with her head against his shoulder. And startlingly, she realized, they were walking together as what seemed would be a nuclear family of a Vorcha, two Drell, and a Human.</p><p>William would be tickled pink.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0063"><h2>63. Chapter 63</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tali looked through the solarshield of the Villetta, observing the docking Misrephoth-Maim. She simmered somewhat at the idea of Quarian technology absconded from vast data sheets she had been privy to, courtesy of her father who worked in subject engineering for the flotilla and advised the admiralty board. He and his colleagues, Tali knew, had come up with the Dyson Sphere model that now floated in suspended anime just outside Omega station. She made a grinding noise from her suit, exposing her irritation. <em>Societies mock us as we took to the stars to evade the Geth whom we ruined, so they say, and unleashed a foul curse. They chase us from their planets, fight with us over berth, and only grudgingly give us harbor when we need. Suitrats, hoodrats, some devil’s curse or plague, and yet they have the organelles to steal our technology, stealth about with it as though nothing happened, and rub our very own ideas into our face. Screw the Alliance! Screw the Council! What is that, but a flotilla ship!</em></p><p>“Kenn, I have the knowledge that you can bring back to my father for our ship. Consider your pilgrimage over.”</p><p>She snapped ten pictures of the Misrephoth-Maim from behind, through the windshield, and sent these to Kenn’s omnitool, a Nexus like hers. Kenn, who had been picked up on the way back to the ship, foregoing any future on Omega or his contract with Harrod, looked down at the data populating his screen, a “Courtesy of Tali” at the end. His gaze swung up to the massive ship beyond their view.</p><p>“That would indeed be some life altering information,” Kenn said in awed reply.</p><p>Joker turned aside in his chair and wheeled down the lower rampway to the galley, looking for something to eat. He called back over his shoulder.</p><p>“That ship has been in the work for years. Turians, Quarians, Humans’ design. Don’t be so insulted we stole your ideas.”</p><p>Tali rose from the navigation and stormed after Joker. Kenn followed, concerned and interested.</p><p>“You <em>knew</em> about this thing?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Joker replied, casually. He stopped in front of the cabinet and pulled out a bag of chips. “Will’s, like, the head auditor. He has his hands in everything. A project goes by the Alliance unknown? Pfft.” He blew his lips out, popping the bag open, its silvery contents crinkling loudly. Tali and Kenn stared at the chips he drew out between two fingers and popped these into his mouth. “Like I said, Will’s got the yes or no on everything that goes through green or gets the red light. He’s an important man, and he can argue himself out of everything. Peer General loves him. Not sure if he’d love him so much after seeing this,” he said through a mouthful, pointing a crumbly finger around the bag at the cruiser through the window. “But who knows? Maybe the Peer General is in on it.”</p><p>“Who is this Peer General? And why have the Quarians not been alerted, or at least credited, with the design?” Tali demanded.</p><p>Joker threw up his hands, the bag pinched between his thumb and palm. “Beats me. Maybe it was one of those ‘off the record’ things.” He quoted his fingers at her and Kenn.</p><p>Kenn raised his hands to mimic the motion. Tali stared at him.</p><p>“Knock it off,” she said under her breath. To Joker, she turned. “I am going to give you until the count of three to—“</p><p>“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Joker interrupted, dropping the bag in his lap and wheeling back up the ramp passed them. “I hear something beeping. Maybe it’s Shephard.”</p><p>They all fell silent as Joker pushed himself out of his chair into the pilot seat, having sped up the rampway to the cockpit phenomenally fast for one just using his arms. Despite his appearance, Joker was trim and fit. A bit on the lean side, his diet in question, and Lana forever ridiculing his hygiene, the Human with Vrolik’s was quite able despite his condition. Tapping out an acceptance of the incoming com, he boosted the relay speakers for everyone to listen.</p><p>“Joker.”</p><p>The voice was William Clarke’s.</p><p>Tali swallowed. Joker hesitated. Kenn sat down and read his omnitool.</p><p>“Joker, I know you hear me. I know who’s on that ship. The Misrephoth-Maim is the ideal technology. It is not only a ship, it is an artificial intelligence that can sense other, tiny, little ships trying to hide. And the Villetta is not quite that stealthy.” William’s voice chuckled. “So tell me, Joker, what are you going to do if Lana ever gets out alive? Are you going to come back to the Alliance? Or will you go out, maybe, try as a Corsair? I hear they have need of pilots.” His laughter was unfriendly.</p><p>Tali gripped the chair and whispered to Joker, “Don’t listen to him.”</p><p>“Shut up,” Joker growled under his breath, eyeballing Tali to see if she understood. He tilted his hat towards the speaker. “He can hear you.”</p><p>“I can. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking. . . Miss Tali’Zorah?”</p><p>“If you know who I am,” she said defiantly, straightening from Joker’s face, “then you know threatening me is to threaten an admiral’s daughter.”</p><p>Joker stared, dumb. Kenn hummed on, tapping away at his omnitool.</p><p>“An admiral, yes, I seem to remember. A troublesome revelation three years ago when we first tried to contain you. I’m sure you recall, Miss Zorah—“</p><p>“Did you send the assassins after me? The ones with the polonium rounds? I should have suspected as much when I pulled one out of Lana’s side. Well, I have news for you. . .”</p><p>Joker waved his hands and pointed at the big ship, indicating so with the breadth of his hands apart, and then pointing to theirs, reducing the size of said width and length, mouthing, <em>Are you fucking crazy? Don’t piss him off!</em></p><p>Tali ignored him, picking up his bag off his lap and shoving it into his hands.</p><p>“. . . You failed. Poorly, might I add. I spent three years working under your nose at the ISS. Didn’t think to look there, did you?”</p><p>“Oh, we were aware,” Clarked replied coolly. “But seeing as you hadn’t delivered the information to the right hands, and perhaps, were scared witless?” Tali scoffed, indignant. “We didn’t assume you were a threat,” Will went on, “and we were right. Who would listen to a little Quarian lost in Human space, no funds, no charter, ready to be picked up at the snap of a finger? No, Miss Zorah,” he said condescendingly, “we kept you right where we wanted you, avoiding any diplomatic incident. We also handled your absence of communication with the flotilla. We have some very sophisticated voice augmenters available to us, you see. Your father was very upset to know that you had adapted to life so well with another planet’s species, that he didn’t even reply when we issued him a message hacked into and delivered by your personal VI, that you renounced your citizenship with the flotilla and chose to emigrate into an Alliance colony.”</p><p>Tali’s mouth dropped open behind her visor. Kenn worked at his omnitool, tapping away.</p><p>“You lie. You didn’t—he’d never believe you. He knows I love my flotilla,” she refuted, near outraged, through her speaker. The light of her eyes grew brighter as did the disc of color over her amplifier.</p><p>To further torment her and lead Tali into believing what they had done was true, Will played back a mocked up version of the recording, using Tali’s voice in perfect sync and dub, over the com. In the playback message, Tali heard her own voice saying that she was sorry, but she had to denounce her status among the flotilla, citing her personal decision to leave on pilgrimage permanently. To make matters worse, Tali, the version speaking to herself, declared, too, that she had stolen her father’s information about the Geth, blueprints for designs meant to aid the flotilla, and concept ideas for the Misrephoth-Maim, the basis of which would help build the underlying foundation of the ship. That she would sell these to the Alliance, the Turian Hierarchy, and fund herself financially so that she could settle down and live off the proceeds, thus beginning her new life outside the flotilla, comfortable and grateful for her father’s contribution.</p><p>“No.” Tali’s voice came calmly through her suit. She refused to believe her ears, praying it was only a farce.</p><p>“And now I ask, Tali’Zorah vas <em>Exile</em>,” William purred into the com after his recording had ended, “where will <em>you</em> go what with home being a waiting trial of capital punishment for treason against the Migrant Fleet?”</p><p> </p><p>Lana looked up. Ahead of her, light. There was a way to climb up through a ceiling, two, and come out onto an open level of city streets and great buildings spanning from one end of the station to the other. The buildings were seamless, small units built stacked on top of each other, in what seemed the dark slum of the 22nd century.</p><p>Lana pushed her hair back, hooking it behind her ear, as Thane moved up beside her, smiled in his passing, and climbed out overhead. He offered her his hand, and leaning one knee against the ladder rail, Lana lifted the little Vorcha from around her back, much like an ape, and passed Graine to Thane first. He helped the Vorcha climb out, and it hung from his fingertips, the creature’s arm strength veritably strong, capable too. Nimbly it swung from his sure grip and toddled over the ment street, made of metal and seam. Lana came next, followed by Kolyat.</p><p>Gripping Thane’s hand, she stared about. “Where are we?”</p><p>Thane adjusted his omnitool, turning it as it had rotated on his arm. He pulled up a screen, and viewed the layout of the station.</p><p>“Level 80. We are well below Afterlife where we came in. Still Adjutant territory, but I wonder what levels held the plague. We could be in one.”</p><p>“Best way to handle plague is not to touch anything, or breathe it,” she said in reply. As a precaution, she began to rip her shirt, easy to do since it was wet and thin. “You should do the same. Just in case. Tear off some cloth and cover your nose and mouth. Don’t touch your face or orifices.”</p><p>“You’ll hardly have any shirt left if you tear yours to threads.” Kolyat stifled his laughter.</p><p>“I’m not ripping all of it,” she said, eyeballing him, wary, “now take a piece of yours before I smother you with my bra.”</p><p>“Please,” Kolyat said back freshly, “I’m sure my father would love that.”</p><p>He pulled out his shirt from his waistband and began to tear upwards.</p><p>Thane, ever being ready, had a mask that he considered giving to Lana, then to Kolyat, and looking at the Vorcha child, sighed and put it over the critter’s head while flattening it against its maw. <em>Lana would have preferred this anyway.</em></p><p>“That was nice of you,” Lana remarked, “but he’s probably infected if he’s from this area and per chance could have already developed immunity to it, or taken medicine to prevent it. That, or it doesn’t even affect him. No, no, leave it on him, just in case. . . Maybe he’s lucky,” she said, pulling Thane’s hands to her.</p><p>While Graine licked the inside of the mask Thane had compressed against its jowls, Lana let his hands come up to her neck as he looked her in the eye.</p><p>“Do you think your motherly ways might have a hindrance on decisive action?” He chuckled. “There seems to be a lot of going back and forth with you, at least in regard to children.”</p><p>“I’m not the one who decided to go behind my back and rescue my son,” she said softly, tickling his nose with her breath.</p><p>Thane’s face hovered above hers, his eyes searching downward into her pupils. He wanted so much to kiss her ear just then, and not stop. “Not now,” he murmured, giving her neck a squeeze and winking, “but I shall look forward to continuing this flirtation later.”</p><p>Lana crossed her fingers at him. “Promise?”</p><p>Thane grinned, and <em>would</em> have kissed her, had a voice not called to interrupt him.</p><p>“Dad!”</p><p>Kolyat had wandered some steps to see what was around a corner, his face wrapped in a band of cloth from his shirt. Lana finished tying her face mask over her chin, mouth, and nose while Thane removed a second cloth mask to cover his. Hooking the child Vorcha’s hand into his grip, he let it swing up onto his back and sit perched around his neck. His shoulders and traps were broad enough for the Vorcha to find a comfortable rest.</p><p>“I hope he doesn’t pee on you,” Lana said, looking up at the smiling black eyes similar to Thane’s own.</p><p>“‘He’ is actually a ‘she,’ Lana,” he politely corrected her.</p><p>“Oh!” she gasped. “I’m sorry, Graine. I didn’t know.”</p><p>Graine chirruped in a pleasant way, the expression on her face content.</p><p>“Thanks again for the save.” Lana smiled at Thane.</p><p>“Don’t mention it.”</p><p>“I didn’t think Graine was a. . .”</p><p>“It may actually be the name of one of the pharmaceutical companies operating on Omega. If you look, you will probably be able to notice a sign here or there. I have a feeling our little friend has had her beginnings somewhere in or around one such site.”</p><p>Lana furrowed her eyebrows in memory as they made closer to Kolyat, who was peeping around the corner of a brown prefab with what seemed to be gang symbols and faded pictures of missing persons. Lana scrutinized one as she spoke.</p><p>“Graine. . . Pharma. . . You know, I think I’ve actually read the name in one of William’s reports I found at home in his files. He had a server that I’d hacked. There was lots of information, but I think it was only what he felt comfortable with losing if someone like myself were ever to break into it. He would leave little treasure pots like that, so he mentioned, to kind of deceive thieves into thinking that what they got was a bundle and to deter them from continuing on. A full belly, so to speak, enough to be satisfied, but not crucial or mission critical for Will or those he serviced.”</p><p>“What did you find?” Thane asked, curious.</p><p>“Just some quotes. . . Numbers. . . It didn’t make sense out of context. I just made a mental note of it, looking for information on Saren really being the focus, and I’ve only made <em>this</em> connection since when you mentioned the pharmaceutical company and Graine’s name.”</p><p>Kolyat shushed them as they came closer, a twenty foot walk from where they had emerged of the underground. Lana tried to peer around him, having reached Kolyat first, but he turned suddenly and motioned them both backwards, pointing to another building across the street. Turning on heel, Thane and Lana moved quick with Graine, picking up their feet and running lightly, avoiding trash or water that could make a sound.</p><p>Kolyat whispered through his mouth rag once they got to the opposite sidewalk. “There’s an armed guard waiting at the other end of the street. They’re coming this way. We need to hide. Hold onto Graine.”</p><p>They turned into an open doorway, went down a few steps and up another, returning to a store face that had a view of the street and corner. Lana, Thane, Kolyat, and Graine all hid behind a counter below the window ledge. They were surrounded by technical wares in the shop. Lana gazed about as they waited, hunched down and pulling Graine off Thane’s shoulders to sit in his lap. She noticed a few shoddy appliances for prefab’s home décor, a culinary tool arrangement, an inoperative kiosk. She wondered why the shop was empty, and why the streets were so quiet.</p><p>Someone gave a shout, and there were a pair of whimpers that followed. Lana tensed. Graine made a low growl, and Thane shushed her as Kolyat tilted his eyes cautiously above the counter.</p><p>Through the window of the shop, he could see down to the street corner where they’d just been. Two women had been discovered and dragged out of a prefab by four armed guards, two Human, two Turian, and the women were pinned down on their faces. Their arms were lifted behind them, thin wrists exposed beneath loose sleeves, and these were linked by the snap of harsh black cuffs. The guards wore clear masks, giving further support to Lana’s wisdom. The women were tugged up with painful cries and roughly handled by the guards. Their clothing looked drab, their postures cringing.</p><p>“Take these two back and add them to the others. Remember to check them all in. Recovery units,” the Human leading the guards spoke into his visor, which had a small mouth piece hooked under his chin. The upper band of the visor wrapped around his forehead to support the shield. “Down to 90H and quarantine block 2. We suspect we have some stragglers in the buildings here. I want a quick check before we go down the next level.”</p><p>The com crackled, a rough voice tinning out an accompanying reply. “Roger.”</p><p>Lana’s gut churned. “What’s going on? Are they rounding people up?” she whispered urgently to Kolyat. “Can you see who the guards are? Omega or Will—“</p><p>“Ssh!” Kolyat hissed, holding his finger up. “They’re coming over.”</p><p>“How many?” Thane said quietly under his breath.</p><p>“Just two,” Kolyat whispered.</p><p>“Don’t kill them.” Lana had lowered her voice. “Or you’ll alert the others.”</p><p>Thane and Kolyat stared at her.</p><p>“What makes you think we’re going to kill them?” Kolyat asked. “Just because we look like Drell assassins?”</p><p>“You don’t,” she whispered, “but he does,” and shouldered Thane.</p><p>“Huh,” Kolyat huffed, not sure if he should be offended.</p><p>The sound of heavy bootsteps crunching on hard metal alerted them to end all their whispering. Thane held his fingers across his lips over the cloth on his face, staring intently at Lana, Graine, and Kolyat, each and separate. The small Vorcha sat in his lap, content to enjoy the heat produced by Thane’s body.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0064"><h2>64. Chapter 64</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The General wants everyone flushed out of here,” said one of the guards, now so close that Lana could hear him on the other side of the window. A shadow formed in the glow of light, stretching itself through the store’s interior as though someone were pausing to consider the arrangement of their dress or make up, but in truth, were the M-M guards searching for the hidden. She heard the other voice enjoin as Thane looked between them, she and Kolyat.</p><p>A Turian’s rough flange was unmistakable. “Hard to think that they hope to get some testing out of here. Too bad these folks got hit so bad.” The voice seemed to move as it spoke. Lana processed the information. She pinched her lip in thought, Kolyat taking notice of the movement. He wondered what she was thinking, the look of the former commander introspective.</p><p>“Yeah,” said the other, shifting his bulk and scratching the butt of his rifle against the façade of the store beneath the window, the sound like claws through the frame of the counter, tweaking Graine’s ears so that her head turned in Thane’s lap to follow.</p><p>“I think those few we found in that upper story complex might hold some promise. Too bad the girl got away, but the others should provide some results if they’re looking for immunity.”</p><p>“They’ll be sent to the labs. Poor saps.”</p><p>“Yep, more testing.” The Turian’s flanged voice raised in question,“You think Virmire?”</p><p>“Wouldn’t that be nice. . . I wouldn’t mind taking that trip. Get off and go sunbathe while we’re landed and making delivery.”</p><p>Kolyat and Thane watched Lana’s mouth move, lips forming the word “Virmire.” Her green eyes looked at them as she leaned back, focused on listening. Thane was intent to hear all as well, but didn’t mind having the woman seated beside him to appreciate, her legs crossed in tight, damp pants, eyebrows twitching in thought.</p><p>He knew of Virmire. An oceanic paradise fought over between Council species and the Alliance for military purposes, or for tourism. At the end of lengthy negotiations between worlds, it was decided the planet could become a protected conservation, but evidently, according to these men beyond the window, someone had already installed some form of operation there.</p><p>The Turian outside scanned the length of the street and began to move an array of nylon strap from his waist. It was fitted with little holders containing small marbles. Withdrawing one, he looked at it, then looked at his friend, who nodded his head down the street.</p><p>With a flick of his claw, the Turian sent the marble rattling down the lane. It may have stopped just before the entrance into the hole where Lana, Thane, and Kolyat had climbed out of with Graine.</p><p>“I have a feeling,” the Turian continued, “that these guys will be sent to Noveria since they’re sick. The rest of the station will be transitioned to the holding cells for cryo, and from there, maybe delivered to Virmire. Either way, they’ll all be tested for the Foundations program.”</p><p>Lana felt a sharp increase in blood pressure, almost as though her heart were skipping rapidly. There <em>were</em> others, maybe unlike <em>her</em> situation, but something was going on between the Turians and the Alliance.</p><p>The Human M-M guard watched his partner roll out three more marbles down the street, then stepped back as the Turian aimed for the opposite end and cast the marbles as far as he could. The metal balls created a rattling that perked Lana and the others’ attention, what with its repeated noise. They were setting something up, what, Lana did not know. She began to crawl forward, keeping low beneath the counter, slipping away from Thane’s touch on her shoulder as he inquired what she was about without raising voice. As she passed among the aisle between the body of the store and the wall, she continued to listen, the voices carrying from the street, down the hall, and into the staircase she was approaching.</p><p>“I hate Noveria,” the Turian griped. “Place is like ice.”</p><p>“It <em>is</em> a frost planet, but the wealthy as fuck live there, and they’ve access to longevital technology. I read this article that one of the companies out there developed a cure for Alzheimers. They only market it to the highest potential bidders, of course.” He snorted in disgust.</p><p>“I heard there’s a civilization frozen in the tundra out there.”</p><p>“Yeah, but that’s not farfetched, not this day and age what with Prothean discovery. Hey,” he added, smacking the Turian’s shoulder with the back of his glove, “I picked up some stock in ExoGeni. You know they went public?”</p><p>“I hope you don’t lose your investment, Hadley. Biotech’s volatile,” the Turian said.</p><p>“Yeah, well, ExoGeni seems to be doing alright, especially since they’re trying to take over Synthetic Insights. That’s a good crop there. Turian owned and operated. Of course a Human company’s making sound business practices when they decide to steal your technology.”</p><p>The Turian laughed at the Human’s joke.</p><p>“Yeah,” the man sighed, checking his rifle and watching the windows, “but they’re leaders in testing anyways. They’ve just opened up a site on Feros, I heard. I expect some return on investment at least before the year’s end.”</p><p>“Hopefully they come up with something better than Adjutants,” the Turian remarked, raising the brows of those who were eavesdropping. “Those fucking things are a pain.”</p><p>Lana made her way up the stairs and proceeded left to follow another flight to the next floor. She kept a careful footing, not want to step on some loose tile or betray herself in some way to the M-M guards. She didn’t think she had much to worry about, dealing with two soldiers, but the information was good and she wanted them to continue speaking.</p><p>She could feel a draft from some open window, and continued up along the stair.</p><p>A doorway with a curtain across it billowed above the next landing, drawing Lana’s attention. She could go left down a hall that had opened, or she could go right to the next level immediately presenting. Something about the curtain was beckoning her to go look.</p><p>There was a faint smell of incense, and something sweeter.</p><p>Something oddly unique.</p><p>Lana could not make out the children’s drawings beyond the fabric of the cloth, which was made nearly translucent by the sulfuric light coming in through the window directly beyond. She assumed that it was from this window that the air was blowing down the stair, moving the fabric curtain on its way against her skin.</p><p>Lana reached for the curtain.</p><p>It was much heavier than it appeared.</p><p>She pushed off her left foot, bare on the cold stair three steps down.</p><p> </p><p>Thane looked up as Graine and Kolyat did as well.</p><p>They smelled death.</p><p>“Stay here,” he whispered, moving Graine into Kolyat’s lap.</p><p>Kolyat watched his father crouch up, move off silently, avoiding the light and keeping low as he made his way to the corner staircase in the rear of the shop.</p><p>Graine’s little body twitched with sniffs.</p><p>She licked her lips hungrily.</p><p> </p><p>The room had a view through a window that had been left open directly facing the opening to the second level. Lana parted the curtain quietly and tested her weight on the panel in the new floor. She gazed about, finding herself reminded of a happy home once, full of toys, comfortable, worn furniture, nothing rich or luxurious, but lived in and kept sound. She peered upwards at the drawings tacked to the walls and saw people, smiling faces, a dog, some mystical thing, what looked to be an Asari holding hands with another person. As she followed the pictures along the wall’s top border, her eyes went down, leading her deeper into the room that wrapped into itself, blocked from being fully revealed as a joining wall projected into the middle.</p><p>The faces, the pictures, went from bright and colorful, to surreal and fun, then to dismally dark, gray, eventually blackening outlines. Lana’s fear began to etch into her skin as she rounded the corner, unable to stop following the telltale story of what had happened to the occupants of this prefab and shop.</p><p>The family was once of six. The pictures, the drawings declined to four, sometimes solitary characters standing alone. A smile became a frown. Tears were drawn in, adding to the faces. A family of four became a family of three. Lana’s heart palpitated, the voices of the men long gone. She kept following the pictures, leading to a bedroom with another curtain, this one hanging limp, unmoving.</p><p> </p><p>Thane came up the steps silently. He stopped at the landing with the hall to the left and the upper doorway with the curtain beckoning gently to the right. He heard the voices of the guards talking, but he, too, was drawn towards the right upper stair, and moved beyond it.</p><p>The voices carried on from above and below.</p><p>“You know I heard the Adjutant was released here on Alliance orders? Big mistake, if that were true. Took out thirteen of us, that one that came up in Afterlife. Good thing the Gen’s got those guns approved. I saw him put on that gauntlet and take the charger with him. Like he knew, man. Like he knew what to expect, you know?”</p><p>The Turian shook his head, fingering his built in cuff with a metal tipped talon.</p><p>“Would be a damn shame if the General knew all about the Adjutant and didn’t tell anyone. Can’t be losing men like that. It’s not good for morale if the man in charge is hiding something from us.”</p><p> </p><p>Lingering by the curtain, Lana stared at the last picture above the door. A final blessing of color.</p><p>A heart with a star arched over six people holding each other’s hands. Four little figures, one dark, one blue, another lavender.</p><p>Lana’s eyes were wide and glassy, greener than they’d ever been. Her mouth was parted as it was too hard to breathe through the stifling cloth over her nose. The threads from the mask were formed into the shape of her mouth.</p><p>Silence was all she heard in her ears.</p><p>Invoked by the desire to know this family’s demise, or whether they were still alive, hopefully asleep, Lana removed the curtain with her hands parting these aside. There were two, and she pushed them away by the middle.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0065"><h2>65. Chapter 65</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] This chapter has been revised.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana's cry caught in her throat.</p><p>Two hands appeared under her arms, wrapping to her mouth and neck. She stiffened, prepared to fight, until she heard Thane's rough, gravelly voice in her ear.</p><p>"Please, please," he urged her, keeping a firm grip on her mouth over the cloth with his hand, "don't go in just to see what you already know. . . Lana," he added, "it's me. Thane."</p><p>She turned into him, grabbing his coat, kneading it out of anxiety, her heart pounding in her chest. Her fast breathing was felt on his tebris, which shivered at the pound of airy breaths. Thane threaded his hands through her hair, damp and long over his fingers, and pressing his brow scales to her forehead, led her away from the shifting curtains disturbed by her touch.</p><p>The taint of death was so strong. . . He had to get her out of there.</p><p>He had seen the pictures, the drawings that recorded a life lived and left. Thane held onto her as much as he held onto his own calm, desperate to leave. The despair was so thick, the stench of death sickening. . .</p><p>"Why did you come up here," he whispered, stopping by the earlier window he had met when he came in, careful to listen to both the men and await Lana's response.</p><p>She looked troubled, ashamed even, her eyes wide and averting his at the same time.</p><p>"I thought I'd come up to find out what they were doing, what they were planning, and I saw this door and this curtain and I had to know, Thane, I had to know," she whispered, opening and closing her hands on his collar. He pet her hair and brushed her skin with his fingers, trying to calm her as he listened.</p><p><em>But you knew,</em> he thought. <em>You knew what lay beyond those curtains! Why did you come up here?</em> </p><p>She looked near hysterical, her breathing fast. Thane could barely hear the men over her, so he kissed Lana. He kissed her through their masks, thrumming slightly and soothing her. It was just such a silly kiss that it made her stop, surprised, and worked to save his clothes from being wrung to pieces. Such a strange kiss, that which he gave her, in front of the drawings, in front of Kolyat and Graine at the bottom of the stair beyond the translucent curtain, to the eyes of the still of the family with three Asari and three Human faces, in this house of death with danger below and behind.</p><p>When he pulled away, still holding her, Lana’s breathing had regulated and she blinked dumbly at him.</p><p>”What was that for?”</p><p>”To calm you.”</p><p>”Oh.”</p><p>”It worked, didn’t it?”</p><p>She didn’t have a chance to answer.</p><p>Outside, the Turian M-M guard activated the sound arbitrator in his omnitool and engaged the marbles he had spread up and down the street. The devices emit a shrill alarm that shattered the glass of every level, surprising and scattering those who were fit to run amid panic and fear. As the windows fell like curtains onto the street below, Lana and Thane turned to the noise of running and screams, people affected by the high pitched shriek of the arbitrators. The victims were clutching their heads and falling down. Even Thane was having trouble not wincing from the pain the sound created, and Lana looked out at the streets to see men and women being corralled, afraid of the pair of armed guards waving their guns and firing off attention grabbing shots. </p><p>“Lana!” Kolyat shouted, unworried for his sound. He kept Graine close to him, who had near taken off while the arbitrators were active. They had since silenced, and Kolyat had a harried look to his eyes, for he, too, had been affected by the painful noise. “Let’s go! There’s an exit out back!”</p><p>“The people on the street,” she said, Thane hurrying her down the stairs. “They’re taking them.”</p><p>“They’re going to take us if we don’t leave, and we still have to meet up with the others, so let’s take the back way and get to the ladder, go underneath the city,” Thane said, moving her ahead of him, following Kolyat as he swung Graine up onto his shoulders.</p><p>They went down the first hallway Lana should have taken before she’d gone up the stairs, and at the end, turned through a door that let out into the alley running between buildings. Kolyat continued to lead, keeping his eyes about and listening to Graine’s growls as she indicated which places were off limits for whatever reason. The longer they walked, listening to the shouted orders by the guards and the ensuing pathetic cries of people being handled, the more they saw signs of devastation in the slum from the plague. Bodies were wrapped in bags and left out among the back exits of housing. Lana covered her mask with a hand, staring at the bags, some with feet sticking out, a foul, sickly smell in the air from being left and forgotten for far too long.</p><p>“Lana, keep moving,” Thane said through his mask, guiding her by a hand on the shoulder.</p><p>Lana realized that Graine might be worth more than just a guide. She looked at Thane, who was focused ahead, watching out for his son.</p><p>“We need to take Graine with us. We could find someone who could figure out why she’s not sick and maybe create a cure for these people.”</p><p>“Most likely there’s already a cure, Lana,” Thane murmured under his breath. “You heard the men. They delivered the plague to Omega for testing purposes. It would be better to find out how and when they wish to spread the pestilence elsewhere, so that we can avoid it.”</p><p>“We can’t let them do that!” Lana hissed through her mask.</p><p>Thane’s black eyes moved to hers. “Lana, can we just focus on getting out of here without being detected? Can we do that first?”</p><p>She raised her finger. “Fine, but I want to come back and help these people."</p><p>“Lana, there will be no one here if they collect everyone. Now keep moving.”</p><p>Lana couldn’t argue with this. </p><p>Kolyat ducked a clothing line strewn out from a wheel three feet high above them and felt the rumble of arriving escort engines, most likely the vehicles come to collect the sick stragglers. The sound built through the alleys, leading one to assume there were many more guards arriving, and as Lana struggled to block the noise from her ears, and more people raised alarm at how they were being jostled on the other side of the buildings, Lana thought she could hear someone cursing in very foul language.</p><p>A few notable syllables rose above the walls blocking them from the street, and Lana knew someone, a woman or a girl, was giving the collecting teams a very vehement protest.</p><p>“This way.” Kolyat nodded, leading them through a window that was ajar and that he had raised higher, brushing the glass away with his sleeves and boots. Graine climbed in first. Thane followed, taking Lana’s hand and helping her over the sill so she could salvage what left she had of her bare foot. Kolyat came next, shushing her as she pointed to the front of the little apartment, this one decorated with strange little knick knacks of Alien implements, candles, and ragged throw pillows on a love seat.</p><p>Lana crept to the front window and peeked out, taking Graine’s hand as the little Vorcha sat beneath her chin and began to suck on a damp tendril from Lana’s hair.</p><p>“Oh, honey, don’t do that. That’s sewer water.”</p><p>She removed the tress from Graine’s mouth and spoke to the others. “The entrance to the tunnel is at the next block. If we run, we can make it. The guards seem distracted with some woman who’s,” Lana paused to peer down the street towards the waiting sick and the black armored guards with their lifts. There was a scrappy young woman with short hair and <em>a lot</em> of tattoos that even Lana could see, and she was giving the guards a bit of a fight as one held her by the scruff of her shirt. She kicked and fought as they half dragged and picked her up. Part of Lana wanted to go and help the young woman, but she was probably sick, though perhaps in an early stage, or maybe just very spirited. Besides, to be of any help to anyone, Lana had to move with the others and get out, back to the Villetta.</p><p>“Okay,” Kolyat said, glancing out the window at what she was looking at, then measuring the distance to their exit with an eyeball. “We’ve definitely got a decent distraction with whoever that is giving them a row. Ready?” He looked at his father, Lana, and picked up Graine. “Now.”</p><p>They unlocked the front door by a bolt and slipped out, making straight for the edge of the hole where the ladder was propped.</p><p> </p><p>“I am <em>not sick</em>! Let me go!”</p><p> </p><p>Lana stopped, Thane bumping into her and deftly catching Lana before she fell. But Lana had not stopped staring down the street at the congregation of sick victims, to where the woman was being roughly handled by the soldiers. Like a flock of black crows, they descended on her, beating her into submission.</p><p>Lana could only take so much.</p><p>She pushed Thane away and began running.</p><p>“Lana!” Thane hissed, missing her arm as she moved it to avoid him.</p><p><em>You heard her, Thane,</em> she thought. <em>Let me save at least one.</em> She sprinted towards the mix, her biotics flaring. The rise and fall of a rifle made her pump her arms harder, and while she could not engage her dark energy so close to the defenseless being taken in, she could handle removing a weapon from one of the soldiers and using it against them. She’d start with the man wielding the rifle as a club and see who first would try to take it back.</p><p>Someone began shouting. “Back away! Back <em>away</em>! She’s biotic! Back—“</p><p>A burst of light greater than any Lana had seen ruptured forth from the middle of that mêlée where the woman was being beaten.</p><p>Lana knew what it was and threw out her barrier, hoping Thane and Kolyat would do the same or jump into the hole. The wave of dark energy thundered outwards, obliterating everything in its path, and what was strange about it was its sound. The hairs on Lana's neck raised. Like a silent rain, it rushed at her.</p><p>The ferocity of the biotic manifestation took everyone, heedless of innocent or enemy, leaving them against the streets and walls. Lana watched the anger come for her, and did not know if she would be able to resist the violence of its onslaught. It was bright, vivid, and huge, alive as a force of nature, consuming and roiling outwards, punishing everything in its path that was flesh and destroying.</p><p>Thane and Kolyat were already by her side, watching the impending event. Lana looked at them as they prepared their own barriers, and she set her brow in determination, increasing the size of her dome of energy to further protect Thane, Kolyat, and Graine, too, who had come to stand behind her legs.</p><p> </p><p>Right as the wave of biotic light and color was ready to hit, Kaidan's head emerged at the top of the ladder.</p><p>He immediately saw the manifestation, recognized the situation, yelled down to his team to remain hidden as he climbed the remaining rungs and bolted towards the four figures standing alone in front of the coming monstrosity.</p><p>Sliding to a stop behind Lana's barrier, Kaidan summoned the most powerful wall of energy he could and pushed this out from him, over Lana's barrier and the two Drell, making note of the small creature tight to Lana's leg. The others barely registered him, though they felt the warmth of his energy like a blanket that had fallen suddenly across their backs.</p><p>Lana, Kaidan, Thane, and Kolyat braced for the hot Hell about to roll them over.</p>
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<a name="section0066"><h2>66. Chapter 66</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] This chapter has received a revision, including more dialogue and context towards the end between Kaidan and Lana.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were rumors that when a young biotic first manifested his or her powers, there was an aftertaste delivered to those around fortunate enough to experience, and live through, that very special, initial manifestation.</p><p>Bitterness for anger. Sweetness for tears. Licorice for joy.</p><p>Lana had heard everything from her experience training with Kaidan at ICT. She remembered sitting in the after hours training studios with the rest of his students, cajoling each other and rattling off scenarios of each of their own initial expressions. Lana’s had been memorable and happy, for she had been with her father.</p><p>But the taste of the wave of this woman’s energy was bitter, sharp, and severe. Lana did not have to open her mouth to inhale it. It came through her pores, through her skin, and so was experienced by the others around her. Lana’s jaw worked, just to spit out the unpleasant taste as spumes of color and light raged overhead around them, making the interior of the barriers hot, stifled, and suffocating. That sensation along with the bitterness in her mouth was grueling to have to bear under.</p><p>“It’s an Initiate!” came Kaidan’s shout from behind. “There’s going to be another one that follows!” he continued, voice raised above the roar of their barriers as under the friction of unyielding energies, the noise was like shoes scraping over sand and gravel. “Don’t drop your barriers yet!”</p><p>Lana twitched against the first repulse, not recalling whether <em>her</em> first manifestation had ever been so powerful or if it had a second wave that followed. Like a gust of wind after a far off explosion, first the sound heard, then the power felt, it made her, Thane, and the others tremble from enduring the terrible force. Similar to lactic acid building up in their muscles, the dark energy fomenting through their amps and out of their bodies was thickening under the held duration as they repulsed the woman’s residual wave of power.</p><p>“Graine, stay with Mommy!” Lana inexplicably grit out, feeling the Vorcha’s hand part from her leg. She didn’t know why she referred to herselfas the Vorcha’s “Mommy.” Some habits just didn’t let go.</p><p>It was a comfort to know Kaidan was behind her, like training under his tutelage in the old days. Thane was beside her on the right, and even Kolyat was there right of him, funneling together their output of dark energy.</p><p>A shape began to emerge as what Lana did not see, her eyes having closed to concentrate against the force, was an M-M lift jolting and jarring over the street such as a ricocheting ball that had been sucked into the passage by the combination of powerful pull and warbling power finally leaving the city. Thane and Kolyat both took hold of Lana and Graine, tearing them out of the way. Kaidan felt the decrease in energy fields and dropped his barrier as the last of the assaulting energy had moved on beyond them, creating suction in its wake. He switched into an offensive position, moving slightly to the right with his shoulders forward, one foot behind supporting. As the lift careened through the air towards him, he deflected it with an impressive pulse of well timed biotic power, propelling it above and beyond the hole to the underground, in which hid his team with the Turian and Krogan, Garrus and Wrex. He blew out as the lift shattered against the far end of the city street, its parts exploding in a flight of pieces into the station’s barrier protecting the city level as well as providing a view of Omega’s cosmos.</p><p>Lana gasped as Thane held her tight, looking up at the great hole at the city’s physical limits. The woman’s biotic initiation had devoured a bite out of the exterior wall. Fortunately, Omega had checks in place for such incidents, though rare, and the city, its bodies, its blocks’ inhabitants, were not vacuumed out into the cold, black abyss.</p><p>“Holy shit,” Lana breathed, unable to take her eyes from the tear in Omega’s structure. It must have been hundreds of feet away, and then there was the width of the station’s actual armor.</p><p>“That was incredible,” Kolyat whispered, staring up the street towards where the biotic power had originated.</p><p>Lana squeezed Thane’s arm and said she was okay after he made eye contact with her. He freed her and she went straight to Kaidan to embrace her long lost instructor from old days of good merrymaking and legendary instruction. He was ready for her with an open arm embrace, and collected her against his armor and uniform with the strong arms she remembered and a cologne she noticed right away among his skin and hair.</p><p>“Shephard,” he murmured in their embrace.</p><p>“Thank God you showed up just in time,” Lana said, adding with relief, “I guess this is review for all those lessons back in ‘74.”</p><p>Kaidan chuckled, his mirth good to hear. Lana could tell that Kaidan had kept intact his sense of humor, despite all the teasing she used to give him for behaving so seriously through much of training.</p><p>Letting him go, Lana turned and looked at Thane, Kolyat with Graine secure and safe, then gazed up the street. She glanced at Kaidan who went with her at a nod.</p><p>Behind them, Wrex popped up his hump, then his saurian face, and gazed about with suspicious red eyes.</p><p>“Is it okay to come out now?” he rumbled, loud and clear.</p><p>“Wait, we’re checking on something,” Kaidan spoke into the receiver of his omnitool cuff, glancing at Lana as she broke into a jog towards the smears of dark energy left burnt into the street, the remains of once living tissue, some inorganic, decorating the ment and walls of building façades. The way was practically clear of most everything—debris, remains, lifts scattered far and wide.</p><p>Thane caught up with Lana, having indicated to Kolyat he should take Graine to Kaidan’s team, Wrex, and Garrus.</p><p>“What is she?” Lana asked, slowing to a stop and studying the girl, barely passed eleven, lying out cold on the street. She was tall and thin, and Lana had assumed that, what with that mouth of hers, the body ink, the chin length dark hair that was shaved off the left side of her skull, she was far older than what the face presented.</p><p>“An Initiate, a first time expressor of dark energy. She’s <em>extremely</em> powerful,” Kaidan opined. Unprompted, he reached into a compartment on the front of his armor, removing a hinged panel. What he brought out made Lana’s blood boil.</p><p>She grabbed his arm, stopping him, and shook her head vigorously.</p><p>“You can’t. . . What are you doing with a suspendor?” she asked, voice hushed as she realized who he would have used it on had this young woman not appeared. Lana’s eyes glued to the silver collar as Kaidan activated it with his thumb on some unseen button within his grip. He could see the Drell beside Lana staring at the collar, too, then lifting his gaze to Lana. Then to him.</p><p>“All of my team carries them,” he said matter of factly, looking from her eyes to Thane’s.</p><p>“You don’t know what Will did to me using that,” Lana hissed, tightening her hold on his wrist’s armor. She barely looked Kaidan in the eye, her stare riveted to the damnable suspendor. “You can’t put that on her.”</p><p>Thane calmed Lana by touching her shoulder.</p><p>“Lana,” he spoke, soft and understanding, “this Human is very dangerous if she does not know how to control her biotic power. If this is just a sample of what she can do unwittingly, then imagine what could happen to us if she were to attack. . . Or worse, if the expressions are involuntary in the future.”</p><p>Kaidan waited for Lana to let his arm go, seeing her with newfound knowledge, and a tinge of anger. Not with her, but for what he suspected she had been controlled with, and why. He took his gaze from her, nodded to the Drell in thanks, and knelt towards the girl on the ground. Gently taking care to lift her neck and roll her sideways, Kaidan attached the suspendor to the unconscious biotic. The silver collar opened with a snap, separating widely enough on two coils to be stretched and fitted over the girl’s neat skull. Kaidan lowered it passed her chin to secure around her neck. It activated with a slight hum.</p><p>“This will protect us from her as well as her from herself,” Kaidan explained, sliding his arms under the frail body and lifting the girl off the street. She wore only a threadbare shirt, red, and large oversized pants held up by a buckle clasp. Placing her over his shoulder, Kaidan carried the girl while Lana and Thane walked alongside him.</p><p>”Are you taking her to the Alliance?”</p><p>”She’ll be taken care of,” he assured her.</p><p>“Kaidan,” Lana warned, a bit too late, “these people are all sick.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Kaidan replied. “The plague is a synthesized disease, and it affects everyone but those who are biotic.”</p><p>Thane’s brow twitched, as he thought of the half Human Asari family. The new possibilities for their demise were all the more depressing, and he touched Lana’s waist for comfort.</p><p>“How do you know that?” Lana asked, touching his hand back. Though she had asked the question, she was grasping quickly that which only saddened her to realize.</p><p>“The Alliance founded it.” Kaidan looked at her face, wrought with a sensitively concealed anger and disgust. “There’s much going on, Lana. You were only involved from the outside. Too much changed since Eden Prime, and not all of it’s been for the better. A lot’s been corrupted. You’ll have to learn more in time, but let’s take advantage of that breach in the station ahead and see if the Normandy can pick us up without being run off by the Misrephoth-Maim.”</p><p>“What is it?” she asked. “I’ve never even heard of the Misrephoth-Maim.”</p><p>”It’s the answer to your reaper threat. The Misrephoth-Maim is a Turian Human collaboration, much like the Normandy was, but it’s built for more than just reconnaissance. It’s built for the future, and it’s both a blessing and a curse. Anderson can tell you more if you come with us, but you have to come to the Normandy.”</p><p>Lana glanced at Thane, uncertain if she was ready to step aboard an Alliance vessel after all that had happened, or if she even wanted to be anywhere near the Normandy crew and Kaidan.</p><p>“How do I know I can trust you, Kaidan?” Her voice came out soft, innocent. Kaidan and Thane both looked at her. “How do I know one of those suspendors isn’t meant for me?”</p><p>Kaidan turned to her, unhindered by the weight on his shoulder, a fierceness in his eyes.</p><p>”Lana, you know me. You know I would never put a suspendor on you. I’ve trained with you since N7, and you and I both know you can control your biotics.” He looked hurt, angry. “How could you. . . Never mind,” he said, bitter, expression softening. “I know why you asked me that. And I know what they did to you. It goes beyond everything I believe in.”</p><p>”Okay, Kaidan.” Lana put her hand on his arm holding the girl. She nodded at him. “I understand, and I’m sorry for questioning you. I shouldn’t have asked, and yet I feel I must.”</p><p>”I know,” he impressed on her, “and I understand why you asked. I’m sorry I didn’t know what they were doing. I only found out this year. I wish. . . I wish they hadn’t done it.”</p><p>Lana didn’t say anything. Her thoughts were too complicated, too hinged on a little boy who had emerged as a result of her treatment. Kaidan didn’t see this though, and only assumed she was still suspicious.</p><p>“I <em>can</em> be trusted, Lana.” Out of his peripheral vision, Kaidan made note of the physical distance the Drell maintained beside her. He looked protective, unerring in his footsteps and motions. As they started walking again, Kaidan thought troubledly what the story of the Drell could be. He considered the possible scenarios as he adjusted the girl’s limp body on his right shoulder, making sure she was comfortable even though unconscious. <em>This one also adds an interesting element to the mix.</em> “You’ll have to decide if you want to trust in me, but I’ve only accepted this mission because of you. Had I known about Project Foundation, I would have tried to put a stop to it.” He stared at her with regret. “I wish I could have protected you. After Eden Prime. . . Not even visitors that were family were given access.”</p><p>”Did you speak with my father?” Lana’s heart jumped.</p><p>”I heard from him, but they were putting him on assignment and he’s been silent ever since. I’m sorry, Lana. I don’t know what happened to him.”</p><p>”That makes two of us.”</p><p>He coughed suddenly, embarrassed for bringing up a private subject among others. He licked his lips and nodded at the soldiers coming out of the hole behind Wrex and Garrus. “There is one person still in service who needs to speak with you. I think you may have a hard time with him, but Anderson’s always cared about you. You’re like a daughter to him, for what it’s worth. Come on. I’ll introduce you to the others. You might recognize a face or two besides mine.” His grin returned.</p><p>Lana slowed as the soldiers moving towards them came to a stop along with Wrex, who rumbled an inquisitive greeting while Garrus eyed the unconscious girl upon Kaidan’s shoulder. Kolyat and Graine were behind them, holding hands. One of the soldiers stepped forward and began to lift her visor. Lana couldn’t recognize who was under the heavy armor, dark and thick, built for a woman.But as the brown eyes and familiar face emerged, Lana’s wonder vanished. There before her was the marine she had saved on Eden Prime, and who had, in turn, found and saved Lana after the beacon had nearly wiped her out of existence.</p><p>“Ash.” Lana uttered the nickname out loud.</p><p>October 1st, 2183, the women had instantly bonded over taking out Geth, drones, and interrogating witnesses to Nihlus’s death. Lana had been separated from the squad and Ashley, to clear a dock on which the Geth had moved a Prothean beacon that she had been sent to recover. Ashley was not biotic, but she had received modifications that enabled her to manipulate some of the laws of physics and gravity. Had she been the one to find the beacon first and interact with it, would she have become another victim of Project Foundation? <em>No,</em> Lana thought, <em>because Will wanted me.</em></p>
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<a name="section0067"><h2>67. Chapter 67</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] This chapter has received extensive revisions.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Normandy was a speck in the distance, growing larger as it came alongside the breach in Omega station. The ship was dark, unlike what Lana remembered. A new paint job. A new logo, one that read AN17 for the Alliance Normandy, Corsairs division, which she would find had been reinstated by the push of several men, Kaidan and Anderson among them, compelled by Lana’s victimization.</p><p>The Normandy was sleek as ever, but as it came close to within boarding distance under the cover of the projection from the asteroid’s shape, she could see that it was dark and black with only a faint red lettering that made it appear, indeed, like a corsair symbol among the stars and space.</p><p>“All it’s missing is a patch and a skull and crossbones,” Kaidan joked. He looked at Lana alongside him, talking quietly with Thane, and he saw the scar on her arm, revealed through the push up of her sleeve. She was kneading it, nervously he figured. And who could blame her?</p><p>Kaidan had not put down the biotic girl in his arms. He wanted Lana to know that he would take care of the child, as he should have taken care of her, now obviously another man’s woman. And by no means did he think William Clarke’s, though she had been married to him.</p><p>The Drell and Lana were intimate. Kaidan could tell by the strokes of tenderness between the pair, and while he was rueful, for Lana was quite a catch, he was happy to see someone giving her affection. Even if it was a Drell. The hominoreptid species was different, yes, but Kaidan had heard rumors and stories about the Kahjic and Rakhic Drell. They were not so different from Humans, as many Aliens often held aspects in common, sometimes being even more Human than the Human species itself.</p><p>Lana glanced at Kaidan and saw him looking at her with a quiet respectful consideration. She offered him a smile and nodded to the girl.</p><p>”I couldn’t think of a better person to bump into and be taken home by.”</p><p>”Gosh, when you put it that way, you make it sound like I drugged her and picked her up.”</p><p>Lana raised an eyebrow. “I meant to train.”</p><p>”I know. I’m just kidding.” He smiled, exhaling through his nose. “You kidnapping Vorcha now?”</p><p>Lana looked over at Graine, jumping and swinging on Kolyat’s solidly muscled arm. He happened to turn his face towards hers. He smiled. Lana rolled her eyes back to Kaidan.</p><p>”I can’t leave her here alone, and I’m certainly not leaving her with you. Who knows what Alliance will want to do with her.”</p><p>”We’re Corsairs, Lana,” Kaidan corrected her, “and there’s a difference between us and the rest of the Alliance.”</p><p>”You’re all under the same name.”</p><p>”Yeah, but we have Hackett backing us and speaking for us now.”</p><p>”And who’s Will got? Hmm? Same name, I presume?”</p><p>”Will works for the Peer General, Oleg Petrovsky,” Kaidan divulged, leaning over to her. “He’s the one who came up with Foundations. Brilliant man, but a snake. No one can outmatch him in politics. Hell, even the Human councilor admires him. . . But Petrovsky and Hackett respect each other, and that’s how the Corsairs have managed to exist despite being moved into the recycling bin of covert agencies. You’d be surprised what Petrovsky let’s Hackett get away with.”</p><p>“And I’m sure the other way around,” Lana muttered.</p><p>Kaidan sighed and agreed.</p><p>”Two different evils, and each one of them thinks they’re good, on the right side of things.”</p><p><em>Well, I’m about to play the middle, </em>she thought, squeezing Thane’s hand before moving hers back to the scar on her arm.</p><p>“Koshi,” Lana said suddenly, slipping in his false name. “Have you heard from Tali and Joker?”</p><p>”Yes,” he murmured, sliding readily into the role of Koshisigre Nupura. “I should probably tell you now that Tali and Joker picked up an extra passenger for charter on the Villetta.”</p><p>”What?”</p><p>“It would seem that the reason for Tali’s venture into Aria T’Loak’s Afterlife, which roused her attention on you, was due in part to helping a fellow Quarian from her ship among the flotilla she is from.”</p><p>”They added a strange Quarian to <em>my</em> ship? <em>That’s</em> the reason I was fighting for my <em>life</em> in a cage pit?”</p><p>”Cage pit?” Kaidan asked.</p><p>”Not now,” Lana growled.</p><p>”Technically, the Villetta <em>is</em> a stolen ship,” Thane teased her. “I should also add that your ex-husband did make an effort to regain it into his possession by threatening Joker and Tali.”</p><p>”And <em>then</em> what happened?” she asked, more than a little aggravated.</p><p>”They left, but are within com distance should we need them.”</p><p>”Should,” she echoed. “Of course I need them. I want my ship back. And just for the record, you <em>helped</em> me steal that ship from my ex.”</p><p>“You stole a ship? From your ex?”The marine, James Vega, who continued not to wear his helmet, couldn’t help himself. He had been listening the entire time.</p><p>Lana smirked at both Thane and Kolyat, they and Garrus giving her knowing smiles.</p><p>“We commandeered what was <em>my</em> part of the domestic house wages, so to speak,” she quipped back delicately.</p><p>James raised two bushy eyebrows.</p>
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<a name="section0068"><h2>68. Chapter 68</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] This chapter has received extensive revision.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A shuttle had come through the barrier field of Omega, through the breach, and alighted at the end of the street to pick up all eleven individuals and return through the hole into space to the Normandy’s waiting hangar. As soon as the shuttle had docked inside the stealthlike ship, the Normandy took off to rendezvous with the Villetta far and away from the Misrephoth-Maim’s hulking silhouette, which Lana had got a jaw dropping glimpse of on their way out beneath it.</p><p>”Can they tell we’re here?” she asked Kaidan while in the shuttle, flown by a young man with a dashing smile and a glint in his eye.</p><p>”They know we’re here,” Kaidan said, leaning forward the pilot’s seat and staring at the behemoth. “They know we’re here, but they don’t know why.”</p><p>“And if they find out you picked me up with my crew, will you be in trouble?”</p><p>”Only if they can prove it.”</p><p>”Who’s they?” she asked.</p><p>”Will and his second, Aiolos Lunn. Man’s loyal to a fault, but so is Will. Both are brainwashed to think the Alliance needs to succeed at whatever cost. It’ll be the end of us, Lana, if we don’t stop them.”</p><p>”Just the two of them? What about Petrovsky? And Saren?”</p><p>Kaidan looked at her, and the expression on his face told her that perhaps she didn’t know everything she thought she had.</p><p>Boarding the Normandy four years later, Lana was amazed at the differences. It had received such an overhaul, and she wondered at what else she would discover having changed in so short a time. Graine clung to her, frightened of the new place, but Lana walked around as if she had always been there, lending an appreciation to those who admired her coming off the shuttle and walking about, the Star of Terra in their very midst.</p><p>James Vega was no stranger to her. He was an admirer from afar, and was near the cusp of asking her for an autograph except for Kaidan or Ashley constantly showing up and shaking him off with their looks. Lana was kept with her crew for the time being, letting them acclimate while the ship’s residents were preparing for treatments that would clear them of possible bacteria and pathogens they had picked up while on Omega.</p><p>Karin Chakwas watched the woman with the long brown hair past her shoulders strolling through the armory and smiling at everything like a girl in a Christmas shop.</p><p>”I can’t believe it’s her after four years,” she said beside her hand, looking over at the stern man next to her. “Anderson, are you going to go down there and say hello to her after all this time or what?”</p><p>He shook his head. “Give her a chance to get settled. She’s enjoying this too much. I haven’t the heart to ruin it for her just yet.”</p><p><em>No, </em>Karin thought, looking at her captain, <em>no, he doesn’t want to ruin it for himself. He’s not ready to face her.</em></p><p>Karin turned back to the screen as Samantha Traynor entered the medical bay and saluted David Anderson, then nodded to the chief medical officer.</p><p>”Ma’am, Miss Shephard will be in need of several vaccines. She has survived drowning in a sewer, among other things.” She had a light British accent.</p><p>Karin and Anderson looked at each other.</p><p>”Can’t be as bad as the day they found her on Eden Prime,” Karin said, turning to her cabinetry and preparing a litany of medicines for Human, Drell, Krogan, Turians, and Vorcha. “Bring her here, Sam, and Anderson, you better get scarce. Should I prepare a mild sedative?”</p><p>”For who?” he asked, sudden. “Shephard?”</p><p>”No, silly. For you,” Karin smirked.</p><p> </p><p>”Should I leave Graine with you guys?” Lana asked Kolyat and Garrus, who had settled into a temporary cabin set aside for guests. It was spacious enough for the two of them. Lana couldn’t see herself sleeping there, all four plus Graine jumping about. Wrex had gone elsewhere in the ship and said he would be back, having enjoyed the camaraderie developed between he, Kolyat, and the Turian. Thane had remained mostly quiet, not wanting to draw more attention to himself than he had already. He could sense people staring at he and Kolyat, and what with Lana and his relationship, suddenly he was feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the amount of affection between her and the male Humans of the ship. Everyone seemed to know her, and to want to talk to her. He knew they would prefer to keep her aboard that vessel. Just how was niggling at his mind. <em>They can’t be any worse than Cerberus</em>, he thought, realizing his assignment might be in jeopardy. He made an effort to keep Lana in his sight, not just for the fact he needed her to go to Kahje, but that he was feeling strongly bonded to her and intended to reunite her with David, and away from the Alliance.</p><p>”You can leave her with me,” Kolyat said, picking up Graine and letting her climb onto his chest. She clung like a wraparound wire doll.</p><p>”I didn’t take you for one who enjoys children so much,” Lana remarked.</p><p>”I like kids,” Kolyat stated with a wink. “They remind me of myself.”</p><p>”Six feet taller and with a muscle bound body,” Ashley observed. She looked at Lana from the door of the guest cabin and nodded her head. “Come on, Commander, we need to get you cleaned. The rest of you can wait your turn. A medical team will be down to treat you all with inoculations and give you some medicine for disease prevention. You’ll all also have to take showers and decontaminate.”</p><p>Lana looked at Graine. “Maybe I should take her with me.”</p><p>”She’ll be fine, Commander,” Ashley said, comforting Lana with a smile. “Corsairs eat bad guys, not babies, not even Vorcha that haven’t sprouted their spikes. Leave her here and Dr. Chakwas can handle her personally when she comes down after seeing you.”</p><p>”Chakwas,” Lana said, following Ashley out as she left Graine in Kolyat’s care, “she used to be my old medical doctor back when. . . When I was XO,” she forced out. Ashley looked back at her as they were about to make towards an elevator that would bring them to another deck, but Lana turned as Ashley had.</p><p>”I think your friend intends to come with you,” Ashley said.</p><p>Lana saw Thane. And a moment later, Garrus.</p><p>”Are you going up with her?” Garrus asked.</p><p>”Koshi, I’ll be okay,” Lana said, raising her eyebrows to indicate he wait with the others.</p><p>”Lana, could I have a word with you?” he asked.</p><p>”Hold on.” Lana stepped away from Ashley and followed him back a step. They put their heads together. A brief discussion went on, more a communication of whispers and eyes glancing back and forth. Ashley sighed and crossed her arms as Lana insisted Thane trust her and wait for her to return. He eventually agreed, and gave Ashley a parting glance before accompanying Garrus back into the cabin.</p><p>”What was that about?” Ashley asked her, feeling comfortable as the day they’d met to be point on with Lana.</p><p>”He’s just worried you guys are going to try to abscond with me,” she replied smugly, looking into Ash’s eyes.</p><p>Ashley chuckled. “You’re going to have to worry about turning away from <em>us</em>, Commander. We’re the black sheep you always wanted in the Alliance.”</p><p>Lana frowned. “Where’s Anderson? Why haven’t I seen his face yet?”</p><p>”In due time, Commander. When he’s good and ready for you. That’s when you’ll see him,” Ashley answered, scanning her ID into the elevator to activate its controls and call it to their deck. The door opened quickly, Lana stepped inside, Ashley next, and they rode it to the next level, talking briefly about the new Normandy and what life had been like for Ashley since ‘73.</p><p>”It was a shock, Commander,” Ashley admitted, letting her out into the hall ahead of her. “I nearly choked on a waffle when the news hit the vids. I mean, there was some relief you’d survived, but to this. . . What waited for you?” Ashley shook her head. “A real shame, ma’am.”</p><p>”Ash, call me Lana, or Shephard,” the mother insisted, “I’m not a commander anymore.”</p><p>Ashley wryly smiled. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”</p><p>Lana stopped in the hall, frowning her best at the indefatigable marine. “I mean it. You shouldn’t be calling me that.”</p><p>”And you shouldn’t have been kicked out for one stupid Turian. Commander.”</p><p>Lana bit her lip, not wanting to deny that it was true. The treatment she had been given all over Saren was uncalled for, highly criminal, and yet she had eventually given in, believing that what she was being forced to go along with had been right, but it had robbed her of all sense, both understanding and <em>not</em> understanding what she had been made to do for the call of Humanity. Apparently Ashley was certain that Lana had been forced to do something very wrong and against her will.</p><p>Lana broke down.</p><p>Thinking quickly, Ashley put her arms protectively about the woman as she cried into her hands, and led her straight away to the medical facility, where they found Karin Chakwas finalizing her treatments for Lana. And at the sight of the old woman whom she used to sit down and drink Serrice Ice Brandy with while on shore leaves, Lana nearly ran to her and clutched onto Karin’s coat as the doctor held her in both arms and ordered Ashley out of the bay.</p><p>”Oh, Lana. . . Lana, Lana, Lana,” Karin soothed to her, running her hand over the woman’s tangled hair as she cried into her cottons, “what have they done to you, child?”</p><p>And even Karin choked up and cried a little with the traumatized woman she, too, had seen stripped and taken from the field at Eden Prime, to be whisked away and demoralized as no shining star should ever have been.</p><p> </p><p>Lana peeled off her clothes, sticky and dirty from the filth of the sewer and tunnels. She stepped into the spray of the Normandy’s shower and raised her face to the hot water, thinking of the sweat, blood, spit from the manchild she had killed in Aria’s Afterlife rink, and the Adjutant that had tasted her tears. It felt good to be getting all of that off her. It felt great to have cried to the only woman she could. And though she felt somewhat embarrassed for having broken down so suddenly in front of Ash, Lana knew that there was another woman she could rely on.</p><p>Ashley and Sam Traynor were outside the locker room door, letting Lana have a moment to herself and clean without being distracted by anyone. The rest of her crew had already been taken care of and were being sent down to another level for decontamination and showers, while Graine was brought to the medical facility instead for private care. Kolyat would later pick her up and return with her to the cabin.</p><p>As for the young biotic in Kaidan’s care, she had come to in a separate lab. Kaidan was there to explain that she was a biotic, and that she had initiated on Omega after being attacked. He left out the fact that she had been bludgeoned by Alliance soldiers working in secret for the Turians, not wanting her to place mistrust in him as a part of the Alliance, though at odds with how it was being run. His job at the moment was to calm her down, explain to her who and what they were, that she would be treated, not to suppress her biotics, but in how to control them for her benefit. She would also be given amps to help handle the dark energy living inside her, and that he would instruct her as personal request for a friend, whom he had failed to protect as one of his own students. Though it had not been his fault what happened to Lana Shephard, the look on her face when he had taken out the suspendor had been enough to convince him he needed to make things up to her, and by helping this girl they had found together and experienced her initiation, he felt he could. That it would mean a great deal to a woman he cared about and felt he had let down by not knowing of the Foundations program that had incarcerated her and used her to produce a child with another biotic specimen, William Clarke. </p><p>The girl’s name was Jack.</p><p> </p><p>Lana pulled open her eyelashes, administering the drops Karin had given her to take that would diminish the risk of aggressive bacteria floating around in her system from the Adjutant. Her left arm was sore from inoculations, and her stomach was feeling queasy from pills. She was thinking how hungry she was and the last time she had eaten, when through the walls of the locker room she heard Thane’s voice outside and Ashley’s. Chuckling and shaking out her hair from the towel wrapped over her head, Lana smiled at the thought the Drell was so anxious to keep an eye on her and not allow the <em>Corsairs</em> to pirate her away.</p><p> </p><p>“How is she?” Thane asked the woman with the brown hair who reminded him some of Lana, though Lana’s face held an oriental quality, and was far more exotic to him than Ashley Williams’s. Beside her was the quiet Samantha, who looked slightly aslant at the tall Drell waiting outside with them for Lana to appear.</p><p>”She’s doing as well as can be expected,” Ashley replied. “She’s been in there cleaning up. Are you. . . Close?” she pried.</p><p>”We are familiar.”</p><p>Ashley’s eyes widened, but only for a moment. “I see. Well, rest assured she’ll be out to meet you back in the cabin we’ve set aside for her stay.”</p><p>”I. . .” Thane flexed his brow scales. “How would I find her cabin?”</p><p>”This way. I can take you to it,” Sam said.</p><p>She left her post with a nod to Ashley and guided Thane to another room on the same level as the guest cabin where he and the others had remained to meet with the medical staff.</p><p>Ashley leaned towards the door and knocked.</p><p> </p><p>“Be right out,” Lana called over her shoulder as she turned to pick up the clothes Ashley and Samantha had given her to wear. She saw the shirt she’d been expected to don was black and cotton, an AN17 logo boldly printed across the left breast. Lana held it up, opening the shirt, and appreciated the symbol for the Corsairs. A smile began to creep onto her lips. <em>Clever bastard. . .</em></p><p>She still hadn’t seen any sign of Anderson, but she knew he was working the angles. Perhaps he was afraid to see her as much as she was not looking forward to confronting him. She confessed she had misgivings about his hand in all things related to her discharge. The words “I’m sorry” would just not cut it for her. Lana had been dishonored and raped in the name of service to the Alliance, and a living consequence had been born of that. <em>No</em>, Lana thought, <em>he was my captain and he signed me away.</em> She had to wonder at how he had convinced Ashley and Kaidan to be there on the Normandy serving under his charge, but also knew they would have said yes to his asking they come for this mission to find her if it meant helping her. They were that loyal.</p><p>Lana sighed.</p><p>She also knew that having them there to pick her up on Omega and bring her back to the Normandy, filled with people who admired and still respected her despite all she’d been through, would make it harder for her to turn her back on the Corsairs and say no to whatever Anderson was intending on asking her to do.</p><p>Lana pulled on the undershirt, the overshirt, the briefs and the socks. She moved into the pants, tightened the belt around the waist, and slid her feet into the new pair of boots, black and polished, waiting for her to tie them on.</p><p>She stopped and looked in the mirror, the haze in the locker room surrounding the woman with damp dark hair and green eyes staring out over what she considered a weak jaw, and a scar that reminded her of those better days, fighting and winning on Elysium and Torfan. And Prime. . . Before she found the beacon. </p><p>A mother and a soldier gazed back at her. Lana suddenly felt wistful for two things: her son, and her return to command. <em>Damn you, Anderson, </em>she smiled, half knowing what he intended. To get her to put on the uniform before she’d even accepted. To feel the taste of return to duty, and let her convince herself that she wanted to stay.</p><p>Lana shook her head and sighed again.</p><p><em>Yes, that sounds exactly like something Anderson would do to persuade me without even setting foot in front of me yet. Smart bastard. . . </em> <em>Keep to the course, Lana. . . Forget the Alliance. . . They used you and now you’re just a liability to them. Go to Kahje, get David, and meet with Thane’s Illusive Man. That’s the plan. So stick to it.</em></p><p>She blinked at herself in the mirror, steeling her resolve. The scar on her chin stood out even more in the florescent lighting come from the fixtures above the mirrors.</p><p>Lana knew what she had to do.</p>
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<a name="section0069"><h2>69. Chapter 69</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] This chapter has received extensive revisions.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>David Anderson read the message from Karin Chakwas on his computer screen and groaned. <em>Of course, she’s going to be sensitive about it. What do I not know that you’re sending me</em>, he thought, irritated. It was only going to take him all his reserve energy to face the woman he had sent away into disgrace for three years, and now beg for her to come back. He would have to come clean on everything, and this he had been preparing for since the days of Eden Prime.</p><p> </p><p>Lana turned to find Thane in the cabin she had been sent to, where she would wait to meet with Anderson. She hadn’t been told he would see her next, but it was something she just felt was about to happen now that she had been put into the uniform.</p><p>Thane looked over the black and red, a question in his eyes. </p><p>“It’s just so I have something to wear,” Lana quickly explained, leaning against the wall with one knee bent, her hands laced below her belt. She looked the part of a soldier, waiting between missions to be briefed. Thane, who was waiting in the corner farthest from the door, came across to her and touched her chin before kissing her on the mouth.</p><p>”Are you certain you wish to speak with the captain?” he asked, pulling slightly away, rubbing the shirt on the sleeve above her right scar. “You know they will ask you to join them. . . This vessel.”</p><p>”I told you I’m going to Kahje,” she insisted, looking inquiringly into his eyes. “Do you think I would go back on my word?”</p><p>”I think this ship and these men and women have a very significant draw for you. It is like watching you gravitate towards a singularity. I am afraid, almost certain, that they will change your mind.”</p><p>Lana was about to rebuff him when the door called.</p><p>The panel slid open at her release of the seal, and Ashley waited outside, glancing between Thane and Lana.</p><p>”Captain Anderson wishes to see you now.”</p><p>Lana looked at Thane, and nodded her leave.</p><p> </p><p>”You signed me away. . . And now that I’m out, through no help of your own, you want me to come back and join the Normandy as a Corsair.”</p><p>Lana fluttered her lashes, the weight of her shoulders in her palms on the table. She stared at the big man standing across from her, a hard edge to his features as he sighed out loud.</p><p>”Shephard, I had to follow orders.”</p><p>”Yes, I was told the same thing. And then a suspendor was put on me to prevent me from fighting back against Clarke while he did what his mission assigned him to do. Just following orders,” she bit out sarcastically.</p><p>”I’m sorry, Lana.”</p><p>”I don’t want to hear it.” She turned away, crossing her arms, making fists out the sides. Lana’s face tightened in a grimace as she fought back the urge to scream at him and throw him through a wall.</p><p>”Clarke raped me.”</p><p>”I—“</p><p>”He received treatments to promote production, and gave these to me to increase the chances of conception. All in the name of service. He used to beat me if I fought him physically, because I was sick of being used.”</p><p><em>God damn you, Clarke</em>, Anderson thought. </p><p>“I couldn’t fight him back with anything. And if I threatened suicide, he would hurt me even more. If I did anything to negate the efforts of the Foundations program, I would be punished. The collar,” she seethed, “let him get away with it. And the Alliance. All in the name of deceiving Saren. But it was a program that proved successful, because now I have a little boy who they wanted for this project. I’m a liability and someone prefers me dead over alive if they can find me. Did you know Will tried to kill me on the Citadel? Or that he dropped an incendiary on top of me in Omega?” She narrowed her eyes at Anderson, having turned to face him again. “Why is he trying to kill me? Why am I no longer useful to them?”</p><p>”Lana, do you know what you’re saying?” David leaned on the table, glowing up by light under his chin and arms. “You still want to be useful to them. Have they brainwashed you that much?”</p><p>He could see it in her eyes. <em>The suspendors.</em></p><p>“You were used by them, yes, and their purposes were insidious. Still are. You do not need to be used by them anymore because they have what they wanted. A biotic Earthborn between two powerful biotic Humans. That you are Lana Shephard make<em>s you</em> a threat to what they have planned. In twenty years, they believe we will need to repopulate Earth or some place else and they want symbols rather than Humans. They will send David to the far reaches just to keep him away from you, his mother, and the sole reason that a child should consider questioning anything else that demands to control him or her in this life. Don’t you see, Lana? David is going to be the future of Terra. An army of biotically superior Humans that cannot only fight against cabals, Asari, anything with a dark energy ability, but hopefully against reapers, or whatever these evil looking things you drew for Will.” He pushed a pile of drawings across the table at her, all violent, stark, grisly images of death and destruction by monoliths on ten legs.</p><p>Lana picked up the papers in a fist and crushed them at him.</p><p>”I <em>saw</em> these things for <em>days</em> after the beacon, Anderson,” she hissed. “Every time I closed my eyes, this is all that came to me. Like I was there. Living it. Feeling it. These people dying by some race’s overthrow. Millions, we’re talking, Anderson. Not just a colony like Eden Prime. . . Planets. Every city that thrives now on Illium, Sur’Kesh, Mars, you name it. . . Is built on the bones of these peoples.”</p><p>She threw the papers across the floor, simmering in rage.</p><p>”And you and the likes of Will think that by building a future army of biotic children to be sent off to some corner of the galaxy to survive and be led by my son’s name and Will’s, will be the answer to all of our prayers. . . How <em>ass of you. . . Fuck!”</em></p><p> </p><p>Her shout was heard through the doors of the meeting chamber inside the Normandy’s central intelligence labs. Kaidan and Ashley were waiting outside and looked at each other.</p><p>”Doesn’t sound like things are going well,” Kaidan remarked.</p><p>”Are you always so obvious? . . . Sir.”</p><p>Kaidan blinked in surprise at her insubordination, but laughed. “I guess it’s true. I do point out the obvious more often than not.”</p><p>Ashley shushed him and leaned her ear to the door to listen.</p><p> </p><p>“Please, Shephard,” Anderson held his hand out, palm open to the table. “These papers prepare everything for you to sign back in under the Corsairs. You can apply and we’ll take care of everything.”</p><p>”I’m not signing any God damn papers.”</p><p>Anderson straightened. “What are you going to do, Lana? You’re a wanted woman now. At least I can protect you if you come under our wing.”</p><p>”You didn’t protect me the last time I was beneath your God damn wing. What makes you think you can protect me now? God! How fucked up has the Alliance gotten that this type of bullshit can even go down legally? Is it not enough you took three years away from me for serving them in their own bizarre idea of fighting back for a universe that’s been thankless since the days of primordial ooze? Maybe I should go rob some rich tycoon on a moon somewhere and watch the Alliance burn when these things come and eat every body or incinerate the cosmos!” Her eyes widened and she slapped the table. “Where is my son? Do you think he’s on the Misrephoth-Maim?”</p><p>“No, they would be holding him in Arcturus with the rest of the children. They’ll be undergoing the treatment program they’ve set up for teaching and training them. They’ll be well taken care of. I assure you, Shephard, that David is the least of your worries if he remains there.”</p><p>”If. . . If. . . See, there’s that word I don’t like because it always brings up a surplus of conditions that I don’t feel good about,” Lana spoke acidly, wagging her finger at him from a fist tight and pale. “Are they planning on sending him elsewhere?” She had to know. Thane had assigned someone to get him.</p><p>”They could move them at any time,” Anderson explained, rubbing his temple. <em>God, I need a brandy. </em>“But my point was that the Alliance will take good care of him <em>if</em> he doesn’t leave because you choose to steal him out.”</p><p>”What do you mean steal? Who said anything about stealing? He’s my son. I don’t have a right to see him?”</p><p>Anderson tapped the papers. “Court orders here state that you will have no access to David. I can get that revoked if I can get you to cooperate and sign with the Corsairs. You and Will would have joint custody again.”</p><p>She stared at him, the blink long and slow.</p><p> </p><p>There was a crash as the doors opened, Lana storming out.</p><p>”I’m done. I need a break. Preferably with a gun and some food,” she said to Kaidan, making right down the hall with Ashley on her heels.</p><p>”Lana, what happened?”</p><p>”I look like I need a bullet in my head, that’s what happened,” she growled, turning on him. “Anderson thinks that if I sign up with this ship and the branch, all will be forgiven. To boost it, I get joint custody with a man trying to kill me because <em>his</em> branch of the Alliance thinks I’m useless. To make things ten times worse, the Alliance wants to use my son, <em>my son</em>, as some symbol for future generations to bear war against the galaxy! What the Hell is happening with the Alliance? And then you’ve got Adjutants and plague and. . . Fuck, I need a beer. . . No, I need a gun. Where can I shoot something for an hour?”</p><p>”Why an hour?”</p><p>”Because that’s how long it’s going to take for him to comprehend that I said no.” She rattled the grids of the floor as she stormed off.</p><p> </p><p>Anderson righted the chair that Lana had thrown against the wall. He began to pick up the papers, holding these loose until they fell into the pile on the table. <em>Well</em>, he thought, <em>that at least went better than I expected. She didn’t outright kill me. </em>He hadn’t expected her to say yes the first time. With Lana, it would be like waiting for an iceberg to melt. It wouldn’t happen all at once, but eventually.</p><p>He just had to make it go faster.</p><p>Samantha appeared in the doorway. ”You alright, sir?”</p><p>Anderson nodded and blew out airily. “Alive and well, lieutenant. Alive and well. . . Couldn’t ask for more.” </p><p> </p><p>“This program was all about creating a deception for the Turians, hiding me and my visions while letting Saren go on with his plans. Alliance got its contract with the Hierarchy,” Lana said, biting off the end of a carrot stick from the bag stashed in the refrigerator with Anderson’s name on it, “and while they let that bastard do whatever his evil little heart desired, I got stuffed in this God forsaken Foundations program and produced a child that was never intended to be raised by me after two. Did you really not know about this Foundations, Kaidan? Because I’m really surprised. The kids are all biotics,” she said to him in the mess hall. They were surrounded by Thane, Garrus, Kolyat, and Wrex in addition to Ashley and Vega. “Subvert an army of biotic potentiates, resistant to plague, able to stand up to other biotically capable races. . . Jesus. . .”</p><p>”Did he tell you the part that they’re working <em>with </em>Saren Arterius in order to implement Foundations?” Kaidan asked her.</p><p>”That doesn’t surprise me,” Lana huffed. “It just fits with the rest of the messed up way of things. . . God, why did I come on this ship? This has been the biggest waste of time. I would rather be in a cage fight with an Adjutant, that’s how painful this has been for me.”</p><p>“I heard you fought with Aria,” Kolyat said, trying to take her mind off things.</p><p>”I actually helped lift a ton of Adjutant out of the Well to give to Will’s men with her as a thank you gift,” Lana started to chuckle, pleased with Kolyat’s distraction, “and then I threw her up its ass. Made my day right there.”</p><p>“Interesting,” Kaidan replied, smiling at her over his knuckles. Lana shook her head.</p><p>“So if the Turians are working together with the Alliance,” Garrus chuffed, “to help protect Saren, how are we ever going to take him down? It’ll be like knocking two, what, hornet nests? Is that what you guys call those things that sting with their bottoms?”</p><p>”Works,” Lana sighed, slumping in her chair beside Kaidan, “and yes. Saren’s in deep, trenched like a mother.”</p><p>”But what about the Misrephoth-Maim?” Ashley asked. “Why would they send that ship in with Alliance and Turians, then start to evacuate or steal people off Omega? What’s that about?”</p><p>Kaidan raised his eyebrows. He looked at Lana, who was already thinking ahead.</p><p>”I want to talk to that biotic we picked up. I’d ask Graine a few questions, but I don’t think she can handle speech very well. That girl. . . How old is she?”</p><p>”Old enough to have tattoos and a lexicon that would make a Krogan blush,” Vega said. “I heard her talking to the doctor when I went by to check on stocks. Impressive.”</p><p>”Works for me,” Lana said, pushing off the table and rising to her feet. She followed Kaidan to the elevator, this time with Thane, and they went to meet with Jack.</p><p> </p><p>The girl had a puss on her face that cried <em>Leave me alone</em>, but Lana only wanted to ask a few questions and give the girl her rest. She could see she was deeply distrustful of her surroundings, and thinking of the ship in space and what this girl “Jack” could do and by accident, Lana was kind of glad to see her under suppression by the biotics collar.</p><p>”So what’s your story, kid?” Lana asked her, taking a seat a few feet away from Jack.</p><p>The girl flipped her hair from one side to the other, exposing more tattoos in a geometrical grid across her scalp, nearly everywhere but her face.</p><p>”Listen, lady, I just want to go back to Omega and be left alone.”</p><p>”You want to go back to a plague infested slum with guards who beat the shit out of you?” Lana asked, squinting at the girl. “You must consider their treatment friendly terms. . . Do you mind if I ask you if they’ve been around Omega before?”</p><p>”They came around once before,” the girl said, running her hair back over her ears and propping her chin on her palms, elbows on her knees as she sat cross-legged on a med cot. “Left the place in a big uproar. They usually drop off and pick up stuff, I guess, if you count one time an example.”</p><p>”What do they drop off and pick up?” Lana asked.</p><p>”I don’t know what they drop off, but it all goes through Aria. As for what they take. . . People. Big groups of them. Something about testing. They usually take out of the sick levels like today.” She fell quiet, thoughtfully and tentatively testing a lump on her head.</p><p>”There’s that word again,” Lana said, looking up at Thane. “More testing. Either Virmire, Feros, or Noveria,” she added, recalling the conversation of the M-M guards. I bet we go to one of those sites, we find something ugly that needs to be shut down.”</p><p>”Noveria would be difficult,” Thane said. “And Feros sounded recent. Virmire would be easiest since there is supposed to be only conservation out there, so a testing facility would possibly stick out well.”</p><p>”Am I going back to Omega?” Jack asked.</p><p>”No,” Kaidan replied. “I already told you that you’ll be here until you can figure out how to control your biotics without a suspendor.”</p><p>”Listen to him,” Lana pointed at the young biotic and Kaidan, “he’s good.”</p><p>Jack looked skeptical, but said nothing else.</p><p> </p><p>Lana went back to the mess hall, hoping to avoid Anderson. “If the Terminus along the Attican Traverse is closed off to Alliance, but allows Turian ships to operate on behalf of said Alliance, then Saren is out here somewhere. The question is where. I wonder if the Salarians or Asari know about Foundations.”</p><p>“They would have stepped in if they did,” Kaidan said.</p><p>”I gave the councilors an OSD each with some information that may or may not have aroused some suspicion. Only thing is, it implicates a non-Turian species, but the voice on the file copied was that of Saren Arterius discussing Eden Prime with an accomplice. Doesn’t help my case with much, but I was hoping it would scare someone into making a move.”</p><p>”It did,” Wrex said, joining them as they returned to the kitchen where he was feeding Graine some dried meat strips. She chewed and sucked with little butter claws wrapped around what looked like jerky. “I was sent with these guys to collect you. My contacts tracked the Villetta to Omega.”</p><p>Lana raised her brow. “Really? I thought Tali was able to cover our signature?”</p><p>”Doesn’t mean you can’t still be found if someone knows what your ship looks like. Fly under the radar, sure, but until you change your colors and the name Villetta on the crown,” Wrex shrugged and gave Graine another strip.</p><p>Lana rolled her lip out and nodded. “True. Maybe we need to paint the Villetta.”</p><p>”Or dispose of it,” Thane said. “Once we make our rendezvous, be assured there will be a vessel waiting for you,” he murmured in her ear, Lana’s eyes widening.</p><p>”Where are you going to go since you said no to Anderson, Lana?” Kaidan asked.</p><p>”Away.” She said simply, not offering anymore insight. “I’ll be looking for Saren, but by a different means than the Corsairs or Alliance. And working on this other stuff caught in my head.” She meant the reapers, tapping her skull.</p><p>Vega left the table and grabbed an apron off a hook by the stove. “I’m going to cook something. You in?”</p><p>Lana perked up, her stomach turning in on itself with hunger. The prospect of something hot to eat was more than a little appealing.</p><p>”Please, by all means, consider me in one hundred percent. I’m starving, and carrots aren’t going to feed this mom.”</p><p>Thane sat beside her while they waited for Vega to pull out meals from the large cooling unit built into the kitchen bulkheads. He was going to talk with Lana about what they needed to do once on Kahje, but Kolyat came over and sat down.</p><p>”So when are we leaving?”</p><p>”As soon as they let us go,” Lana said, leaning into Thane’s arm. He played with an additional logo of the AN17 design stitched into her sleeve, and scented her hair.</p><p>”You smell good,” he mumbled at her. Lana flicked his chin, dragging her nail lightly on the fine fold of silk red skin beneath his jaw. Thane thrummed a little with pleasure.</p><p>Kaidan looked over, having gone to check on Vega’s production in the kitchen, and to advise him not to burn everything.</p><p>”Get away from me, man, I know what I’m doing!” the young burly marine exclaimed.</p><p>Chuckling, Kaidan gave his distance. “How long have you two been, what, together?” Kaidan asked Lana.</p><p>She looked at Thane. “It’s fairly recent. We met on Earth, believe it or not.”</p><p>”We don’t see too many Drell coming out of the Traverse,” Kaidan mused, looking at Ash. “Were you sight seeing?”</p><p>”I was on assignment,” Thane replied. “Still am.”</p><p>Kaidan looked at Lana, raised his eyebrow. “Would you happen to be that assignment?”</p><p>”Kaidan,” Lana warned, “we’re not discussing my affairs or my crew’s. Okay?”</p><p>”Fine,” he let it go, “but I’d like to know, or at least keep in touch with you, where you’re heading. I mean it, Lana.”</p><p>”I was on Earth for three years,” she replied, looking a little cross. “You could have visited me then.”</p><p>”Yeah, but things were busy, and I’d presumed your life was sealed from us, what with the amount of security they put up regarding contacting you. Berisley is a bubble, much like the rest of the housing on Earth nowadays.”</p><p>”He got in,” Lana thumbed at Thane, who shrank a little.</p><p>”Lana,” Thane whispered, “let’s not discuss my avenues of insertion.”</p><p>”That’s what you want to call it?”</p><p>He blinked at her double entendre, then smiled at her application.</p>
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<a name="section0070"><h2>70. Chapter 70</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] This chapter has received extensive revision.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana inspected the guns, watching for cleanliness, tuning. They all felt heavy, complicated, worrisome if they were to get dirty. </p><p><em>“</em>This must be a pain in the ass to keep clean,” Lana said to Kaidan beside the armorer in the Normandy’s arsenal. “The filterate would bleed over the trigger and all these controls after prolonged use. Is there a shield, or is it assumed the hand is big enough to block some of the residue?”</p><p>Kaidan and the armorer leaned forward to see.</p><p>”It has a resonator that shakes the grit out. It still needs to be cleaned after use as any gun,” Kaidan advised, “but it doesn’t build up as much as you think.”</p><p>”Hmm,” she hummed, “not bad then. Where do you train with these?”</p><p>”We have a simulator below deck,” he said, pointing to a square on the floor. “Mock ups are down there, already charged for virtual game play.”</p><p>”You have to wear suits with hoods that cover the face,” Ashley said, standing by Thane as they waited for Kaidan and Lana to finish checking out weapons.</p><p>”Why is that?” Lana asked, intrigued.</p><p>”The material carries a charge from the attacks by your opponents, so you feel a buzz wherever you end up being shot. It’s as close to real as one can get and still be able to perform missions at a moment’s notice.”</p><p>”Painful?”</p><p>”Depends,” Ash replied with a smile.</p><p>”It’s pretty sensitive,” Kaidan added. He gave Lana a mischievous grin. “Care to try a round against me?”</p><p>”All four of you should go,” the armorer said. “It can take a quad.”</p><p>”Is that a warning or a fact?” Lana asked.</p><p>”He means four people,” Kaidan said, offering her to the lift that would take them down.</p><p>She grabbed Thane and Ash, tugging them over to join her and Kaidan as the square platform descended. A playful light in her eyes met Thane’s, and he couldn’t resist giving her a lopsided grin as his siha took him to the virtual simulator below.</p><p>”You think you can take me on,” he said, questioning her and taunting.</p><p>Ash and Kaidan shared a look at the two’s flirtation.</p><p>”I’ve been hoping to get a chance to see you up against me in action.”</p><p>Visions of her against the wall in the shower and apartment model flashed through his head, and Thane grinned ever more broadly.</p><p>”What’s that look for,” she asked, suspicious of him now.</p><p>”I’ll tell you later,” he murmured.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this really how you guys perform target practice aboard the Normandy?” Lana stretched the synthetic suit with expensive detailing of wires and vectors strewn over the course of the uniform.</p><p>Kaidan threw his head back and laughed, easy and lighthearted, as Lana pulled over her hood and connected it to the catsuit.</p><p>“It beats drilling a hole through the bulkhead and compromising the ship,” he answered, glancing over at Ashley already decked out in her uniform and looking deadly serious. Thane as well. The two appeared daunting in the uniforms.</p><p>Kaidan activated the simulator through his omni cuff and the lights brightened then darkened to low, casting long shadows in and around the structures set for their use. Lana checked out the set up. There were outcrops of what appeared to be folded metal with dull edges, walls, and raised pits one could climb into or over. Nothing was taller than an individual engaged in the course, and it was small, but large enough to allow for running. She took a look at the weapon in her hand, a realistic version of the gun she had seen above in the armory, but this was designed for the game. She smiled, lips rubbing against the hood allowing her view through two orbs protecting her eyes.</p><p>”So as I said,” Kaidan went on, “the ammo’s simulated, rounds are not real, but impact causes a buzz that’s enough to make you drop your gun. All parts of the body are <em>not</em> off limits, so keep that in mind. Sensitivity will be highest on the areas with the most nerves.”</p><p>”Fantastic,” Thane replied.</p><p>Kaidan chuckled. “I think you’re going to have fun with this.”</p><p>“I’m not going to get you in trouble for playing this game, am I?” Lana asked, suddenly. “Anderson might be pissed.”</p><p>”I guarantee you, he’ll be watching,” Kaidan informed her, pointing to the ceiling. “We can broadcast the game to the rest of the ship through the vid sets. So you guys, make sure you perform well.”</p><p>”And no cheating,” Lana said, adjusting her grip. “It’s been a while since I had to measure up to trained soldiers. My tactics and strategies have been honed to raising a kid and beguiling a bastard husband for the past three years.”</p><p>”Yeah, we know,” Kaidan said, sly and impish as he nudged her in the shoulder. “Let’s focus on the game, shall we?”</p><p>”You didn’t seem to have a problem when you met with Garrus’s crew,” Thane whispered to her ear through the fabric.</p><p>“I was rusty,” she admitted with a shrug.</p><p>“The guns have semi-automatic bursts. You can fire single rounds if your finger’s light. Koshisigre, you alright with that grip?” Kaidan wiggled his fingers, indicating Thane’s conjoined middle and third.</p><p>”Fine. Thank you, Kaidan. My grip is not much different overall.”</p><p>“Everyone find a position. I’ll activate the game, and when your suit buzzes twice, you’ll know it’s on.”</p><p> </p><p>Anderson sat down in the mess with Vega and Chakwas, looking up at the screen broadcasting the game below decks.</p><p>“Hard to pick who’ll win,” he said. “Though Lana’s been out of the field for a while, I would hedge towards her.”</p><p>”Why is that, sir?” Vega asked.</p><p>”She’s hungry for it. And Lana was always the first into the fray. She’s creative, too.”</p><p>”Is that why you want her back?”</p><p>”One of the reasons.” He leaned backwards, propped by support on the table and chair to watch the game’s players set up in their preferred spaces. “Lana’s a born leader. People will flock to her. Hell, even I do, though she hates me.”</p><p><em>Well, maybe you shouldn’t have signed her away, </em>Karin thought, <em>even if the likelihood of producing something extraordinarily powerful from her genes seemed worth the risk.</em></p><p> </p><p>The lights dimmed, and Lana spread herself flat beneath a raised square platform that had space underneath to crawl. She watched for feet, breathing quietly through the suit, and listened for footsteps and the subtle shift of movement and cloth. She knew Ash would prefer higher ground, and Kaidan would keep quiet and low. Thane. . . She had no idea, but she recalled he was comfortable in close quarters as well as at a distance.</p><p>Someone ran across her line of sight, and Lana crawled forward in pursuit. She rolled out from underneath the platform and stood up, pressing to the wall that she came up against three feet away, following it to the corner, hoping to cut off whoever had run by and hid on the other side. It was a game of mouse on mouse, each trying to hide and attack the other. No all out confrontations yet. Lana was slightly intrigued by the lack of forward assault by any of the others.</p><p>The hand that came out holding a gun aimed at Lana was easily wrapped by her arm, bent backwards, and Lana had moved herself over the shoulder of the adversary she had brought to her knees. Immediately, she pulled the trigger into the temple of Ashley’s head.</p><p>”Damn it,” she heard Ashley whisper, being sport enough not to give away Lana’s position too loudly.</p><p>Kaidan was next. Lana thought it was interesting that Thane would wait to be last for her to handle. But for Kaidan, it was no simple deal. They had trained together, that having been said, and though biotics were not guns, the tactics had some carry over. Lana knew Kaidan’s moves. Kaidan knew hers.</p><p>They met in the middle of the arena, quite by accident, and ducked each other’s shots before fleeing left into a row of walls with holes cut in shapes throughout. Lana fired through one, striking Kaidan’s knee. It was not a kill shot, but he felt the buzz and couldn’t use his leg as the suit stiffened around the joint and impeded his ability to move with ease. He was silent about it, a real soldier, and limped off still, to hunt her down or defend himself.</p><p>Lana dogged him, holding her gun tight, elbow bent, shoulders relaxed. She was stalking him, making it look easy, and a part of her relished the hunt, but at the same time, she felt a pang of guilt for doing so to her favorite instructor. Lana loved the man who had taught her how to use her biotics, and in a strange way, she thought she was inadvertently declaring war on him.</p><p>Just as she climbed over the top of a raised block that gave her access to a view from above, Lana felt the air tingle behind her and sprawled like a cat, flipping on its back.</p><p>She pushed off Thane with her boot, hard, knocking him off the block and out of sight. Lana’s heart raced. Had he been on her the entire time, or had he just appeared in that second her instincts fired?</p><p>He was mocking her, she was sure.</p><p>He had been so close, yet not made the shot. This was a game to him. It <em>was</em> a game, but to Thane, teasing her with how close he could get and not kill her was satisfaction. And she had not shot him, at least not in time before her initial reaction took over to kick him off.</p><p>And like that, he was gone.</p><p>Heart pumping, Lana rolled over and checked below the block to where she thought Kaidan had been hiding.</p><p>She dropped down, stooped, and crept along, looking sideways for his sign. She heard a muffled sound, someone’s soft curse, and Lana knew that it had to be Kaidan who had just been taken out.</p><p>Thane would not take advantage of her, not being on live feed. He hunted her, however, and silently approached her left, but cut away to a set of blocks, hoping to flank her right. Through the partitions of these obstacles, he could see her waiting for him, head tilted down as though listening.</p><p>Lana felt the tingle, perhaps a cross of intangible energy fields, and moved towards it, crouching low. She thought about how Drell hunted. They had several benefits resulting from their genetic make up. Eyes that could see well in the dark, hearing that was fine tuned for very low and high frequencies, and what of smell? How well could he scent her?</p><p>Lana decided to test a theory. Dropping her hood on the floor, Lana vanished over another wall, and waited close by, keeping her scent close to the hood, but hoping he would go for the bait.</p><p>And as Thane stooped from the shadow he had appeared by, to pick up the hood and look over at her, Lana’s face smiled through the cutout hole in the wall she observed him from. Behind the pistol’s sight, she held her aim and whispered, “Pow.”</p><p> </p><p>”Gotcha! I gotcha, I gotcha, I gotcha,” Lana sang back in the cabin, undoing her hair from a braid she had tied it up in. She had won the match, having taken out two, which left her with a slightly higher score than Thane, and having also survived against the three she’d challenged. Kaidan and Ashley had had to meet with Anderson afterwards, so Lana showed herself to the cabin with Thane, the armorer having offered to ID them into the lift that would taken them to their level.</p><p>”That was very good,” Thane confessed, letting the door seal behind him and securing it with a privacy mode. He began to unbuckle his pants and strip down behind Lana as she sat on the cot and stopped singing.</p><p>She was excited, having won the little simulation with deviousness, and proven her theory that Drell had a heightened sense of smell, an advantage that could also be exploited.</p><p>”You liked that, huh?” she asked, watching him come near her, fully aroused and bending to touch their faces together. He licked her ear, and breathed hotly down her skin upon her neck.</p><p>”I don’t think anyone has ever tried to deceive me with the scent of their hair before, not that I have had many opportunities to know the scent of one so intimately who has such a lovely feature to be enjoyed.” He bunched his fingers in her hair, pulled her backwards, down to the bed, arm around her shoulder, fingers on her chin and moving down over her neck. He moved them further to her arm, along her wrist to her palm, and raised her hand, bringing it to his tebris. Her fingers fanned out, feeling the vibration among the fine folds, and tickling him gently, continued to encourage him to excite and unclothe her.</p><p> </p><p>“What happened here?” he asked as they rolled over together on the cot, squeaking under their weight. He touched her waist. “This is where the polonium round went in. Why is it scarred like that?” He checked her arm, looked at the side of her thigh, and stared at Lana. “Were you. . .”</p><p>”I combined it together with a warp while I was in the sewer. Remember that Adjutant I mentioned lifting with Aria?” He nodded. “I opened the wound and had to close it. I was worried about infection. Nothing more sterile than dark energy,” she grinned, but the curve on her lips shivered and faded.</p><p>Thane kissed her brow, holding her head to his chest, and breathed in deep, raising his pecs against her. He held her tight in his arms and thought about what Aria had put her through, and a heat in his chest flamed to life.</p><p>”I was very, very impressed with how you handled yourself against the odds T’Loak put you up to,” he said, tilting his face down to look at hers. The cot creaked as she shifted onto her elbows. She perched like a cat on his chest. <em>No,</em> he thought, <em>like a sphinx.</em></p><p><em>”</em>I would really prefer it if we could avoid visiting Omega for a while. At least Afterlife,” she sighed.</p><p>”I don’t think there will be much left to worry about once Will is through with it.”</p><p>She frowned, furrowing her forehead. “That’s what worries me. He was collecting those people, Thane,” she let the name slip, hoping there really was privacy in that closed room. “I think we’re going to find out what he’s really been doing with them if we hunt around those places the guards mentioned. I have a feeling it will bring us back to Omega, and if not just for those people, maybe those Adjutants.”</p><p>”One thing at a time, siha,” Thane said, raising his head to kiss her cheek, cupping her opposite jaw with a large hand that touched against her ear. “Let us go to Kahje first, find the Illusive Man, and Feron will bring David. We will make arrangements to move on from there. . . With the Illusive Man’s help, of course.”</p><p>”Who is this guy,” she asked, looking down at him. She noticed the blush of a salmon pink color lining his inner lips. Tempted, she slipped her tongue into his mouth, which he met with a flick of his, teasing their tips together.</p><p>Pulling away, he murmured under her gaze, “No one knows, but you will meet him. He is just another power in the universe, Lana, and he will help you. He is invested in you. Through me, and through my son.”</p><p>”You did say that your son was at risk if you didn’t bring me to him, the Illusive Man.”</p><p>”Yes. . . It was the only way to make me do anything against my will. Originally,” he added, as he lowered his flared ridges on the back of his head to the cot’s pillow.</p><p>The door suddenly called, an intrusive beep into their intimacy. Lana sighed, drumming her fingernails on his tebris, which flinched at the impact. Thane collected her hand, kissed it lingeringly, and sat them both up with the effort of his body.</p><p>”It is time to go,” he said, and handed her clothes for her to dress in.</p><p> </p><p>Lana’s hands stilled over the AN17 logo on the shirt, and she removed it, pulling it over her back and folding it together. Beneath, she wore the simple black undershirt. She laid the top on the table in front of Anderson.</p><p>”Thanks for letting me sample it,” Lana declared, looking him in the eyes. “I wish I could go with you, but too much has happened, and I want things to change.”</p><p>”Things have changed, Lana,” Anderson said, disappointed, but having anticipated this result the first time trying to persuade her to join.</p><p>”Yes, things certainly have, and it’s not enough yet. I don’t know when it will be, Anderson.”</p><p>He frowned and looked down at his reflection in the table, the light in its surface no longer on. “I understand.”</p><p>He looked up at her.</p><p>“There will always be an opening for a squad leader on my ship. Know that, at least. . . You can always come back.”</p><p>She wasn’t so sure, but she appreciated his sincerity. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted, Anderson,” Lana spoke thoughtfully, poking her finger into the fabric of the discarded top. “But I won’t be a martyr for you, or for the Alliance. I want Saren, and I need to find out about these things in my head. I don’t know if what the Alliance has come up with is an appropriate response for something so dismal.”</p><p>”Then go, Lana,” Anderson urged her, “go find out, but keep us in the loop. We’re trying.”</p><p>”Yeah, I know.” She rubbed her face, pausing her hand over her mouth. She sighed.</p><p>“You know anything about Virmire?”</p><p>Anderson looked up sharp, having reached over to gather the shirt and drop it on the pile of papers before him. “What about Virmire?”</p><p>”Nothing.”</p><p>She decided against telling him what she’d heard. Slipping the name out was truth enough he knew about it. She intended to make a trip out there, but she didn’t need Anderson showing up with his Corsairs if they could be better applied elsewhere.</p><p>“I’m going to say goodbye, Anderson, for now. Go gather my crew, take the shuttle out. You still promise me a ride to the Villetta?”</p><p>He nodded. “Sure, Shephard. Whatever you need.”</p><p>“Good,” she said, turning to the doors and looking darkly ahead of her, “I’ll hold you to it.”</p><p>She regretted having to leave Alenko and Williams behind, Karin Chakwas, too, but they were Alliance, or at least Corsairs, and Lana wanted nothing to do with anything that reminded her of the disgrace and pain. Besides David, her son, who she would take with her once Feron had returned him into her care. She didn’t want him to have the same life, the same infamy, and to be used for the Alliance. She would give Cerberus a chance, and perhaps find the answers to her needs through them, what they could offer a woman bent on defending a galaxy, never mind just a colony like Elysium. </p><p>She would show up to save the Alliance from their mistakes, she was sure. There would always be a need for a hero in their ranks, one that could be trashed and recycled. For now though, she was done providing that use.</p><p>Before the doors sealed behind her, Lana spun on her heel, and out of respect for her former captain, she saluted Anderson.</p><p> </p><p>Lana stepped off the lift when the doors slid apart, and found Garrus, Wrex, Thane, Kolyat, and Graine all waiting for her. The little Vorcha very nearly ran over to her, having not seen Lana for the past hour. She picked Graine up and let her hang off the neck like a heavy monkey, supported by Lana’s arms.</p><p>Karin Chakwas was there, having delivered some supplies for Lana to take with her. Putting Graine down, Lana hugged the woman and thanked her aside from the others.</p><p>”I hope we’ll see you again under better circumstances, Lana,” Karin said, cupping her shoulders and squeezing.</p><p>”Keep up the good work, Doc, and maybe one day we can enjoy another Serrice Ice Brandy together. Thanks for the shots. And the shoulder,” she murmured, slightly embarrassed.</p><p>Karin smiled and looked up with Lana as the domineering hulk of Wrex stooped over them.</p><p>“They’re sending me along with you to keep you out of trouble,” Wrex rumbled, then barked out a laugh, devoid of his seriousness. “Just kidding. I need a ride to Kahje for a bounty I’m hunting. Kolyat says you’re heading there next.”</p><p>Lana sighed, looking him over, then glared at Kolyat. “It’s going to be <em>real</em> tight on the Villetta, but I suppose we could make room for a Krogan.”</p><p>She turned her focus to Garrus. “You coming with us?”</p><p>“Yes,” Garrus nodded.</p><p>“Okay. Take Graine and harness her into the shuttle.” She coaxed the little one towards him. Turning to Kolyat, she crooked her finger and beckoned him over. “Mind you, I <em>will</em> get you back for that stunt you pulled in the tunnels. Don’t be a problem for me, you understand?”</p><p>”Yes, ma’am.” He smiled and looked at his father, whom Lana turned to see nodding her attention towards Kaidan, Ash, and Vega arriving from a joining doorway leading to the hangar. </p><p>“We talked,” Vega said, a sheepish smile on his handsome face, “and I got permission to ask this one favor.”</p><p>He handed her his helmet, the smile brightening.</p><p>“What’s this for?” she asked.</p><p>“Your autograph. . . Mind signing my helmet for me?”</p><p>She chuckled wholeheartedly, shaking her head and taking the offered gold marker he handed over to her. Kaidan rolled his eyes as she signed her signature on the brushed metal side.</p><p>“You really going to leave me?” he asked her as she handed back the freshly inked headgear to James.</p><p>Lana’s brow winced. “I’m sorry, Kaidan. As much as I’d love to work with you on a mission, and Ash,” she nodded to the woman, “I just can’t stay on with the Alliance. I’m done.” She nodded, as if to reaffirm this with herself.</p><p>Kaidan frowned, jerked his chin down sharply, then drew her into him for a hug. They held on for a long while as Lana sighed bitterly at what she had to say goodbye to.</p><p>“Thanks for the help,” she whispered, moving away, but holding him at arm’s length. “I hope you can train that girl we found. I hope she’s worth it.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he said, tilting his head in consideration. “I think at first she’ll have a time with it, but Jack’s got a lot of potential, and don’t worry, I won’t let her go to Foundations. She’ll be here with us.”</p><p>Lana nodded, believing him, then turned to Ashley and shook the woman’s waiting hand.</p><p>”I’m glad I found you that day in ‘83. You take care of your new squad, you understand me? Or I <em>will</em> be back.”</p><p>Lana smiled drily as Ashley saluted her. There was no point in stopping the woman.</p><p>“Use the helmet more often,” Lana told Vega, turning away to board the shuttle with Thane and her crew ahead of her. “It’ll prolong your life, or at least catch your brains for the reconstruction later,” Lana added with a wink.</p><p>“What?” Vega stared at her as she took hold of the side of the shuttle, leaned out for one last wave, then ducked her head inside as the door closed and locked.</p><p><em>I hope they know what they’re doing,</em> Lana thought as she harnessed into her seat across from Thane and under Garrus’s shadow. The Turian preferred to stand and hold onto the overhead bar, talking C-Sec with Kolyat and Wrex. Lana checked Graine’s harness and smiled at the little Vorcha, whose tummy was looking a little fuller since last she saw her.</p><p>“We’re finally leaving,” Lana said aloud to Thane, “but I don’t doubt we’ll be back, regardless of who I work for in the future.”</p><p>Thane nodded his understanding to her as the shuttle thrummed and lifted from the floor of the bay. The pilot glanced at their reflections in the glass shield before him, through which could be seen the opening ramp of the hangar parting to reveal space and stars beyond flashing yellow lights signaling their departure.</p><p>The shuttle shifted forward, banking smoothly to starboard as it passed through the walls of the ship. Into view came the Villetta, bright and long as it sat abreast the Normandy in expectation of them. Lana felt some anxiety at having to leave her friends behind, but as Thane looked over at her, Lana set her brow and firmed her resolve. It was time to move on.</p>
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<a name="section0071"><h2>71. Chapter 71</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Sorry for the delay in updates. Actually, I went through chapters 65 to 70 and made some additions and subtractions from the plot. More dialogue, better context, and a new direction, albeit more focused. I know, I know—this one did it again! Anyway, I hope you reread and check out the new stuff. For now, Chapter 71 will be brief, and I’ve started 72. A lot of time has been spent editing for typos, creating artwork on DeviantArt for my Arcturus Block series and revving up for some new material in that realm. But I’m still keeping on with Lana and Thane (oop, I removed some of the gratuitous nooky they had, just because, well, it’s been done). Anyway, thanks for reading, and merry Christmas.</p>
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    <p>Aria ran her hands over her crests, the cartilaginous tentacles yielding slightly from her pressure. She wanted to tear them out. Alone at the controls to Omega station, she was looking at sectors 80 through 100, which were moving with what appeared as tiny little dots, up to a minimum of fifty indicating Adjutants alive and populating the tunnels and other living conditions within closed off parts of the station. She had evacuated as many as she could back when they first hit and the station had to be sealed off at those levels, but amazingly, there were still people left behind.</p><p>She couldn’t do anything about it though. She had Clarke’s Misrephoth-Maim controlling Omega through some AI that the ship employed. The station was at mercy, and she was failing as queen to keep it together. If she could regain the guns, she might be able to slug a few rounds at its shields and ward the Misrephoth-Maim away from the asteroid, but that didn’t seem possible with her useless overrides.</p><p>“Grizz, get me Patriarch,” she said over her shoulder.</p><p>The Turian left the center for control and returned minutes later with the large, lumbering Krogan who acknowledged Aria by a nod of his crown plate sloping back by grooves from the lip of his skull above his eyes.</p><p>“Alright, Patriarch,” Aria said. “What would you do if the station was overrun by an AI in a ship as big as the Misrephoth-Maim?” She waved her hand to another screen that revealed the inhabitants of Omega being forced out into the streets under watch of an army run by Turians and Humans, bringing them to a shuttle line of platforms moving to and from another screen in which she could see part of the Misrephoth-Maim’s bulk near the station.</p><p>Patriarch narrowed his old eyes at the screens and rumbled through his chest, “You put a flea on the beast with a virus. Do the same thing they did to us with the plague.”</p><p>“All it takes is one,” Aria said aloud, musing over the idea. “Who do we know who can come up with a service to hack into the mainframe and take down the AI? It would take too long, but if someone were fast enough, maybe. . .”</p><p>“We have that Geth we deactivated,” Patriarch suggested. “Maybe in exchange for releasing it, we can send it to shut down the ship’s AI.</p><p>She considered, wrapping her fingers around her elbows. “That thing was going to pay me a fortune if I sold it to those Quarians.”</p><p>“Yes,” Patriarch replied, “but it seemed intent on locating something, and if you promise to release it to the Misrephoth-Maim, it can use the ship for whatever its intentions are. Regardless of what it does, a Geth like the one we found will be able to hack into the ship to turn it to its use and give Clarke a headache that will have him focus elsewhere rather than on the station.”</p><p>“What about his second? Lunn?”</p><p>“Let me deal with that one, Aria. He’s just a Human following orders. Put him in with the rest of the guards questioning their purpose for being here, fighting Adjutants, and we might find ourselves a new convert.”</p><p>“Grizz,” Aria turned to the Turian, “go get me that platform Geth, the one and only.”</p><p>“The one with the N7 armor on its arm?”</p><p>“Good Thessia,” Aria snapped, irritated beyond belief. “Yes! There’s only one!”</p><p>Grizz looked slightly embarrassed and hurried off to Patriarch’s chuckles.</p><p>“You sure have a way with him, Aria.”</p><p>“Yeah, great. He’s going to have to move in to fill Anto’s space since Lunn took him out with a bullet. Shit. . . I should have known Clarke was going to pull some switch like this long before it happened.”</p><p>“You did, but Shephard was here, and Clarke seems to be in a hurry to find her.”</p><p>“No, he’s not. He’s just letting everyone else do the work. He could give a rat’s ass about her. . . I’m going to sound an alarm to the station, see if I can give Clarke more of a reason not to bother with Omega. You ready?” She pressed the broadcast key for the entire station and spoke into a receiver. “Omega. . . You are being collected by the Misrephoth-Maim’s owners, a bunch of Turians and Humans in black armor. These may be aided with some sort of suspension disabling biotics. However,” she grinned evilly, “they are not <em>wholly</em> unsusceptible to simple physics. Please enjoy fighting for your right not to be removed from the station and pick up a blunt object to start encouraging the men and women to leave. That is all. . . For now.”</p><p>She sat back, smug, from the console and looked at Patriarch, who turned and left to go deal with Lunn.</p><p><em>A king’s job is never done, </em>he thought, elbowing his way through Aria’s bodyguard.</p>
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<a name="section0072"><h2>72. Chapter 72</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Misrephoth-Maim took the entirety of the lower half of Omega station. The resistance to their efforts to collect everyone was nothing in comparison to the strength with which they forced all into the recovery lifts and couriered them to and from the asteroid. Second in Command, Aiolos Lunn, left a message for his superior that the lower levels had been evacuated and were ready for re-establishment of the new colony they had prepared to implant.</p><p>William Clarke was pleased. He could see that the plans were going well, and their impromptu visit at Omega to pursue Lana Shephard was being redeemed by the progress for repop of transplanted colonists from elsewhere throughout the Attican Traverse. He had not anticipated being so thorough, so fast, but this was good. His wife, or ex-wife, as even Will was having trouble fitting the prefix onto the root of the word after three years of use, which amused him since it was so easy to avoid if deliberately trying to hide her existence from the women he met, could wait to be dealt with, having come so far from Alliance space.</p><p>“She won’t last out here,” he said aloud to himself, alone in his General’s office beyond the bridge of the ship.</p><p>She certainly had impressed him, what with her arrival on Omega after leaving the Citadel. <em>Her friends must be resourceful</em>, thought Will, <em>though Lana has always been able.</em></p><p>He accepted the message from Aiolos at the top of the inbox list on his computer with the touch of his finger and moved to the next console screen above. <em>How are the plague victims?</em> he wondered. Over four thousand had already died on Omega, and that was accounted. The unaccounted could be in the thousands. He would have to send in clean up crews to dislodge any bodies that remained.</p><p>“Computer, please adopt the unit reclamation protocols on Omega and implement over the station. Make sure not to revive if any individuals are found within zero to fifty percent viability.”</p><p>The computer’s AI responded with a concise “Confirmed.” The shape it took as it formed on the display disc above revealed a woman’s figure, which was the preset. Clarke chuckled at how every designer who ever created an AI choose to display a female of the species pertaining to their origin.</p><p>“General Clarke, there has been a disruption to the safety perimeter of the station.”</p><p>“Really? And where was that?”</p><p>“An explosion has opened level 80.”</p><p>“Interesting. I wonder if Lana had a hand in that,” he thought aloud.</p><p>“The emergency barrier is effectively preventing vacuum, General. A ship has been through the entry point. Would you like to send a squad to investigate?”</p><p>“Were there any of ours down on level eighty prior to the explosion?”</p><p>“Yes. Recovery was ongoing, if not finished.”</p><p>“Are those units available for com?”</p><p>“ No, sir,” the AI said after a pause.</p><p>“Troubling,” he replied. With a sigh, and dropping his hand from a trimmed beard, “Send a unit to investigate, then confirm with me that all crews are removed from that level. Was it quarantined?”</p><p>“Yes, General.”</p><p>“Then open the barrier for that level and release the leftovers to space. It will help with clean up and prep, but do make sure that my men are clear before we go about that task, understood?” <em>What could have happened? </em>he wondered. <em>Would Lana blow a hole in the station just to exit it? That doesn’t make sense. No doubt, however, it must have been something incidental to her existence down there, if I may place a bet. Hopefully she was injured in the blast.</em> He felt a twinge of remorse. After all, she <em>was</em> his ex-wife, and the mother of his child. “Computer, also inform the investigating squad to keep an eye out for Lana Shephard’s body, or at least any signs of her ID on level eighty.”</p><p>“Confirmed, General.”</p><p>He wished to know what had happened to her since Afterlife. It would set his mind at ease, determining whether or not she was dead yet. That would make Salvatore far more pleased with him. He was in the Turian’s good graces, as far as Will could tell, but losing Shephard from the Citadel had made Salvatore question Clarke’s effectiveness at reigning her in without suspendor, child, or lies. He would have to report to Salvatore in three hours, what with the progress of the station’s evac and repop, but also to relay whether he had detained and eliminated his ex-wife. The news that she was still at large could be frustrating to the Turian, as it meant there would be one major threat to their operation.</p><p><em>A woman with a score to settle,</em> William Clarke thought as the AI diminished. “A very dangerous thing.” <em>Hell hath no fury as the woman who is spurned and lives to exact her revenge.</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0073"><h2>73. Chapter 73</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shuttle docked alongside the Villetta, and a connector was extended from the external wall of the larger ship to the smaller door of the transfer vessel. As the clamps engaged by universal connectors manufactured by Human hand, a tunnel formed between ships, made fit for organic beings to cross space from one place to another.</p>
<p>Lana checked with the pilot to see if he was satisfied that the connection was secure. He introduced himself as Steve Cortez.</p>
<p>“Should be safe to open the door now and make across. Pleasure having you, ma’am. I know the Captain will be real sore you didn’t stay.”</p>
<p>She stopped from leaving as the others moved to the door and manipulated the controls for disengaging the locks. “Yes, well, it’ll be for the best, Steve. Anyway, take care of him and the others. I’d like to see them all again.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure you will, ma’am.”</p>
<p>He gave her a smart salute. Lana couldn’t believe it. The entire Normandy was beholden to her. <em>Maybe I’m crazy to leave.</em></p>
<p>“Lana,” Thane approached and touched her arm, “you should go ahead. I’m sure Tali and Joker will be relieved to see you first.”</p>
<p>Taking her gaze from the pilot’s, who lowered his hand with a nod, the smile fading, Lana went to the door in front of Garrus and Wrex. She pushed open the sliding panel. The smell of sterility, and nothingness, in the connector, added to the space she began to feel. Lana passed uneasily through the neck of the door, lowering her head so as not to bump it on the drop of the doorway’s frame. She paused again, hesitating. Thane was behind her.</p>
<p>“What is it?”</p>
<p>“Nothing,” she replied, and moved forward. At the opposite end, the door to the Villetta slid from its holding, and Tali, with her suit of silk, raised her arms in greeting.</p>
<p>“Shephard!”</p>
<p>A smile worked up the side of Lana’s face as she crossed to Tali and stepped above the lip of the second entry, setting her new boots down onto the carpet inside the Villetta. She was nearly strangled by Tali’s uninhibited embrace. Holding the Quarian to steady herself, Lana eventually detached to step out of the way and let the rest of her team through. Graine appeared behind with Thane and Kolyat. Garrus followed. The connector shuddered slightly with Wrex tromping through. Once aboard the Villetta, the Krogan gazed about the foyer of the ship and grunted with approval.</p>
<p>“Hey, Commander,” Joker’s voice hailed through the speaker above the center of entry. “Welcome back.”</p>
<p>It was all she needed to feel herself unwind from the tension of walking away from what she knew she wished to stay behind with.</p>
<p>But that ship would sail, and Lana <em>would</em> go on.</p>
<p>She took Graine’s little claw from Kolyat’s and looked up at Thane, who smiled back at her.</p>
<p>“It must be strange to be here after stepping off the Normandy.” He moved along with her toward the cockpit,Lana showing Graine the way.</p>
<p>“No, no,” she replied, voice soft, admitting, though she tried hard not to, “it’s good for me to be back. After all, where else can I find the satisfaction for giving Will a figurative black eye?”</p>
<p>She swung Graine’s claw, focusing elsewhere to help distract from regrets. Thane heard it in her voice, however.</p>
<p>“So good to see you decided to join us.” Joker started to rise from his seat, but Lana motioned him to sit.</p>
<p>“No need for standing, Joker.” She put her hand on a hip. “Thanks for the uploads, and for the keeping the Villetta and crew safe. We have some new crew to introduce. You know Wrex. This, here, is Graine.”</p>
<p>Tali had gone to get Kenn and rejoin them in the cockpit. Wrex and Garrus went down to the galley to start looking for more food. The Krogan rumbled with joy when he found a bottle of liquor stashed inside the cabinets.</p>
<p>“Are we becoming a daycare?” Joker asked, staring at the small Vorcha clinging to Lana’s leg. “This one, and then your son will be added, right? He going to join us, too?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Lana sighed, hesitant though she had brought the Vorcha with them. “I couldn’t leave her on Omega. She helped us out of the tunnels and wasn’t affected by the plague in the city. I think Graine here might have something else to offer if we can find someone to study her genetics or immunity to the strain of virus released on the population.”</p>
<p>“Gee, did you even ask the family if you could steal her?” Joker asked with a snort. He tipped his hat up. “Not that I recall Vorcha ever being the doting parent type. . . Whatsoever. . .”</p>
<p>“We don’t know if she even <em>knows</em> what a family <em>is</em>. It’s hard to tell,” Lana admitted, “and she didn’t seem keen on finding anyone besides me. But did we have a choice? We hardly had time to look, what with all we encountered when we left the tunnels.”</p>
<p>“A biotic Initiate and Will’s agents,” Thane contributed for explanation.</p>
<p>“I see.” Joker considered the Vorcha. Leaning over to the seat beside him, he turned it and gestured with a sweep of his arm from Graine to the chair. “Hop up, kid. You and I can fly this ship while I do a search on missing claims for Vorcha from Omega. No promises, but I’ll try and get you re-adopted by a more appropriate species other than the Commander here. Besides, you don’t want to hang out with her. She’s trouble.”</p>
<p>Graine smiled, clearly making it seem she understood. Joker held onto his own smile, slightly ill with the small Vorcha’s vicious seeming grin.</p>
<p>Graine climbed into the chair and Joker gave it another spin. Lana knew there was probably something wrong with her for taking off with a child, even if it was a Vorcha and circumstances had forced things to happen as they had, but she experienced a sense of comfort watching the small creature enjoy itself on the padded copilot seat. She turned to Thane and noticed Tali waiting with her Quarian friend.</p>
<p>“Okay. So what’s the deal with you two?” Lana asked, suspicion kicking up a notch at sight of the second Quarian.</p>
<p>Tali introduced them. “Lana, this is Kenn. He is Flotilla. I had to help him because he was under abuse by a despotic Elcor on Omega.”</p>
<p>“Really,” Lana mused, fingering her swollen lip, eyes jumping from Thane’s back to Kenn’s visor. “<em>You’re</em> the reason I ended up being brought to Aria. I do suppose you owe me an explanation. What’s your story?”</p>
<p>“I ran into some credit trouble. Had to sell salvage for an Elcor named Harrod who made me overcharge my customers. They would purchase from his shop instead of mine. I’d make a cut, though small. It was a way to make some credits and save up to leave Omega, but I was hardly making anything to qualify for a decent savings,” he shared.</p>
<p>“Sounds familiar,” Lana said, glancing at Tali. She gave Kenn a look of disapproval. “How did you get into the credit trouble?”</p>
<p>“Gambling off a program I found,” he explained. “I was caught using a VI to increase my odds in a game and basically forced to give up all my credits.”</p>
<p>“Did you trash the VI?”</p>
<p>“We’re Quarian,” Tali cut in. “We hold onto what we find for later uses, and Kenn, here, sent his VI to the Misrephoth-Maim. It managed to interfere with the sensors, enabling us to escape Clarke’s attentions. Nasty Human, by the way.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Lana said. “He’s a piece of work.” She turned to Joker. “Hey. We all set with the Normandy?”</p>
<p>“Shuttle disconnected. Normandy’s left. Want me to set a course for Kahje?”</p>
<p>“Please do. Thanks.” To Tali, “While we head for our next destination, I want you to fill me in on what Will said.”</p>
<p>“I’m glad you asked, Shephard,” Tali replied, fooling with a silk band under her chin. It was oddly nervous of her to do so. “There’s something I need to tell you about that. A few things, in fact. . .”</p>
<p>“Hey, Lana.” Garrus came up the ramp, interrupting them. “You mind if we talk about Kahje and what happens afterwards? It’s important. Not that you’re not, Tali.”</p>
<p>The Quarian glared at him through purple eyes that turned a hazy pink in her visor.</p>
<p>“I’ll be right back,” Lana sighed, nodding at Tali and Kenn before turning to walk Garrus back down toward the kitchen. “You’re really rude, you know that? If it weren’t for the fact I don’t want to be distracted while I’m holding conversation with Tali, I’d have told you to screw off.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I know,” Garrus said, dismissively. “Look, I want to come with you.”</p>
<p>“You’re here now, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“No,” Garrus said, flicking his mandible. “I mean, I want to go where you go after we reach Kahje. That means this. . . Illusive Man, Cerberus, whatever. . . I don’t care what they represent. I want to work with you.”</p>
<p>Lana stared at Garrus. “You expect to go with me once we get to Kahje and I sign on with some organization that you were only calling terrorists, what, yesterday?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” His mandibles clapped to his face.</p>
<p>Kolyat coughed into his hand.</p>
<p>“What do you expect to get out of following me, once we get to Kahje?” Lana asked the Turian. “I have the information from you I need, so you’re pretty much useless now besides being a sore foot. You can go if and when you choose to. I won’t hold you to anything. Granted, I’ve appreciated the company and help.”</p>
<p>Garrus’s placido curled inwards. “You can’t just leave me after. . .” He spluttered for words, then raised his talon under her chin. “You’ve taken me to Omega after fleeing the Citadel.”</p>
<p>“That’s not true.” She pushed his claw away. “You and Thane brought me here, which I had to fight to get out of, need I remind you?”</p>
<p>Garrus stomped his feet together. “I’ve only gone to Hell and back for you to get you patched up, then through a sewer complex filled with Adjutants. I lent you my visor, got stuck in the dark, and saved you from drowning. Hell, even helped your Normandy friends find you. Never mind save you from him.” He indicated Kolyat, who gave him a<em> ‘Who? Me?’</em> look. “You need me, especially seeing you’ve lost your senses what with choosing to leave an offer put up by the best in class the Alliance has to offer.”</p>
<p>“Well, I have to disagree with you, because you weren’t the one—“</p>
<p>“Being knocked up and exploited for three years by the Alliance, I know. I heard it all before.”</p>
<p>Lana frowned. “Not how I’d put it. . .” She stiffened her chin out, raising her eyebrows, eyes widening. “Look, I can’t promise anything. There’s no telling what Cerberus will have me do once I’ve signed on. I only had assurances that David would be accepted, <em>if</em> he is even brought to me. That’s been clear from the get go.”</p>
<p>“You said you could use me when we first hooked up. So you’re my crew now. I expect you to bring me with, especially seeing that you <em>incinerated</em> mine in a hole in the ground and brought me with you under threat. . . Plus,” he added, grudgingly, his flanged voice lowering a decibel, “we’ve already been through a lot together. . . And it’s been kind of fun. . .”</p>
<p>She blinked at him, then started to laugh. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she pointed a finger up at his face.</p>
<p>“I’m so glad I can entertain you, what with my screw-ups and my life being on the line most of the time.” She took her hands back, stepping away from his tall form. “I assure you, Garrus, you are considered one of my crew. . . For now. . . Just like everyone else here. . . Excluding Wrex, Graine, and Kenn. They’re just along for the ride.”</p>
<p>“I can replace him if you want me to. You just have to pay me,” Wrex said from the galley, pulling a bottle neck out of his mouth. He sprayed some of the liquor on the floor.</p>
<p>“Clean up after yourself, Wrex,” Lana admonished. “I don’t mind you fighting and spilling Adjutant guts everywhere, but this ship stays clean.”</p>
<p>“Hey, I just started liking you,” Garrus growled over his shoulder at the Krogan. “No one’s taking my spot unless the lady says so.”</p>
<p>Kolyat and Thane raised their eye scales.</p>
<p>“Listen, everybody,” Lana called out, spreading her hands apart. “I appreciate all that you have done on my behalf and each other’s. I think we all have to consider what we want for ourselves <em>before</em> reaching Kahje. Omega was a taste of the trouble waiting for me. I will have you know, undoubtedly, there will be more, especially with regard to my goals. I want to find a Turian named Saren. His work, and the Misrephoth-Maim, make it all the more important that I do so. If anyone remembers the size of that ship back there,” she said, pointing out the solarshield, as if the Misrephoth-Maim were waiting just beyond. “And what Hell we had to fight through to happen our way onto the Normandy, then back here? Let’s leave it at that, shall we? I’m focused on what I’m learning, and have yet to hear.” She nodded at Tali. “And those Misrephoth-Maim guards we heard talking on Omega. . .” She glanced to Thane and Kolyat. “Virmire, Feros, Noveria, ExoGeni. . .” Tapping each name on her fingers. “Those are all places on my itinerary. If the Illusive Man lets me, I will go to each, and wherever else I find necessary. Anyone who wants to come, by all means, I welcome you. But I want to find out what the story is with that ship. What a Turian-Human asteroid dropper is doing in Alliance prohibited space, collecting the sick and healthy from Omega. . . That’s the type of stuff I’m going after. . . And it’s dangerous, and heavy shit, as all of you may now know.”</p>
<p>“The Illusive Man’s call, Lana,” Thane reminded her. “You do realize he may have other plans for you in mind.” He went to stand beside her, and lowered his voice to confide. “You will also have David <em>and</em> Graine to account for. While I am certain the Illusive Man’s resources are capable of supporting your own dependents’ needs, in addition to those of his employees, I would prioritize what is most important for you to take care of first, that Cerberus may help with, and that would not require the disbursement of a sixty-second army.”</p>
<p>“It would only take one to board the Misrephoth-Maim,” Garrus said.</p>
<p>“Perhaps.”</p>
<p>“I can see what you’re both trying to tell me,” Lana said as she removed her omni cuff with the expensive bracelet from Dae. She handed both to Thane. “While I go organize my priorities, starting with Tali’s needs, do you think either of you would salvage this stuff for me, what with all the abuse they’ve sustained since I met Aria?”</p>
<p>“I think Tali or her friend would be better able at such a challenge.” Thane passed the omnitool and bracelet immediately to the Quarian, who had seen the cuffs and come down the ramp to intercept these.</p>
<p>“Keelah,” Tali breathed through her amplifier, watching drips of brown water fall out of the bottom seam. “<em>This</em> might take a miracle.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0074"><h2>74. Chapter 74</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana sat at the table in the galley and watched as the Quarians set to disassembling the Savant. Tali put aside the wrist cuff from Dae’s contraption for later. Presently, she was intent on working open the cuff to let all of the water out.</p>
<p>“Omnitools are not so compatible with water,” Lana observed unhelpfully.</p>
<p>“What did you do to this thing?” Tali asked in awe, peeping beneath the circuitboard to find a puddle literally sloshing inside. There were many components, all for various needs and outputs.</p>
<p>“I survived a sewer strainer, Tali.” Lana noticed Kenn move the pieces Tali removed into a specific order on the table. The two Quarians worked together, wordlessly. “You must gravitate towards this sort of thing, what with working in salvage,” Lana surmised of Kenn.</p>
<p>His visor leaned left, and she could see the eyes smile. His own were blue, glowing like Tali’s.</p>
<p>“We know much about the tools we used to create the evolving species of Geth.”</p>
<p>“They are not evolving,” Tali whispered, heatedly.</p>
<p>Kenn looked as chastised as a Quarian could be through his mask.</p>
<p>Lana’s eyebrow flexed. “The servants of your people, yes?”</p>
<p>Tali bent deeper to her work. She tugged out small cloths from her suit’s storage packs about her arms and laid these over the circuitry. “Will absorb the extra moisture hiding.” She paused, realizing she had avoided Lana’s question, and added, “Kenn is sensitive about Geth.”</p>
<p>“He is, isn’t he.” Lana stared at Tali, who ignored the look.</p>
<p>Stretching both arms, Lana forgot to stifle her yawn and looked up as Kolyat moved into the kitchen and began rummaging through the cabinets.</p>
<p>“Coffee’s above the fridge,” Garrus said, winking at Lana.</p>
<p>“Man, I’m tired.” She puffed her cheeks out and blew. “Thanks for working on my Savant. You keep up these saves, Tali, I’ll be owing <em>you</em>. . . Speaking of which, you want to tell me what Will said now or later?”</p>
<p>“Later,” Tali torted, short on patience suddenly.</p>
<p>Thane and Lana glanced at each other. <em>That was odd,</em> Lana thought. <em>She’s not so uptight. I wonder if Kenn said something that really set her off. . . She seems to be very sensitive about Geth being anything more than slaves to her.</em></p>
<p>Thane sat on the bench beside Lana and wrapped his arms around her waist, sliding her in close to him. He had bent one knee up and let the other rest on the curve of the seat, foot flat on the floor. Lana could feel him doing that vibration in his chest that she liked. His heat made her sleepy, and she rolled back her shoulders to press against him. He would have whispered something sinful in her ear if she weren’t sitting in eyes’ view of half the crew, at least.</p>
<p>“When we arrive on Kahje, I want to take you for a stroll with Kolyat. We will swing by my brother’s. He will need to see that my son is secure, and then I will need to discuss leaving him there for a time. With Graine, perhaps?”</p>
<p>Lana turned her face towards his. “Cerberus after?”</p>
<p>“I was thinking of something else <em>before</em> our meeting with them.”</p>
<p>He pecked her brow with the smooth curve of his lip and held her gaze. A thrill ran to Lana’s crotch. She looked away, feeling inappropriate all of a sudden, but heard Thane rumbling with impish laughter.</p>
<p>The coffee set down in two mugs. One for Kolyat, one for Lana. He looked suspiciously at his father, then back to her.</p>
<p>“What’s this I hear about visiting an uncle?”</p>
<p>Thane pointed to his nose, and then to the room beneath the cockpit. He rose and went with Kolyat, who took his mug from Lana’s after giving her a questioning expression.</p>
<p>“Too bad those two can’t get Right of Breeda against each other,” Wrex rumbled, looking off a ways. He swung his head back.</p>
<p>“What’s Right of Breeda?” Lana asked.</p>
<p>“It’s when two male Drell—we call them Drem in my tongue, but don’t calling Kolyat or Thane that,” Wrex warned her. “ It’s a species slur. Makes fun of their. . . Genitalia.”</p>
<p><em>I’ve got no complaints,</em> Lana thought. “Must be easy to make fun of everything that has two less balls than you do.”</p>
<p>“Hey!” Joker cried out through the speaker. “We got kids on board! Watch your mouths, will you? Sheesh.” The com clicked off.</p>
<p>“So. . . Right of Breeda?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, the male has to fight off a challenger for the mated female. It’s an official takeover of the female’s clan and any offspring she’s produced with the first male.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Tali asked, raising her head from her work.</p>
<p>“That’s. . . Not right, is it?” Lana wondered.</p>
<p>“True as a Krogan fart.”</p>
<p>Lana and Tali would have both made the same disgusted face.</p>
<p>“And the female has no say?” Tali asked.</p>
<p>“No, but the matriarch does, and the patriarch if he’s around.”</p>
<p>“The parents of the female?” Lana said.</p>
<p>“Not necessarily. Drell on Rakhana sponsor members of their tribes. One can adopt the head family’s name, but they’re not blood. Lots of loyalty in those treasachs.”</p>
<p>“Interesting. . . Do they ever inbreed?”</p>
<p>“Ask Thane.”</p>
<p>Lana nearly knocked over her mug as she swung about to see Thane and Kolyat giving her odd looks, having returned from their discussion noiselessly.</p>
<p>“Did you just ask what I thought you asked?” Kolyat shook his head at her with complete disapproval.</p>
<p>“I take it Wrex has been informing you on the ways of Rakhic culture.” Thane waited for her answer.</p>
<p>“I was only. . . “ Lana bit her lip. “He mentioned ‘Trial of Breeda’ and it just went from there. . . I’m sorry.” She threw her hands up in defeat.</p>
<p>Thane chuckled and corrected her. “Right of Breeda, and, yes, it is a trial. One in which a mitali must prove himself worthy of his drellahna. To not only her, but the tribe. Anyone may become a patriarch one day and have to lead the clan, or treasach. On Rakhana, only the fittest and wealthiest do well.”</p>
<p>“So should I take it you both are high on the totem pole?” She attempted to flatter them for her error.</p>
<p>“Lowest of the low,” Kolyat said, leaning down to wink and rib her with his big elbow. “You’re slumming it, taking with my dad to bed.”</p>
<p>Thane pushed him away and the two pummeled, jovially, until Kolyat broke off to retrieve his coffee from Thane’s makeshift training room.</p>
<p>Thane turned to Lana and offered her his hand.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0075"><h2>75. Chapter 75</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Happy New Year.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was music suddenly, as Graine had found Joker’s arsenal and begun to play with the disc jockey in the ship’s computer. The beat was fun and lively, and Lana was feeling the caffeine in her blood. Kenn started tapping his knees as his hands paused their work to fall below the table.</p>
<p>“Tali,” he remarked, “this song reminds me of Renweard’Zora’s music.”</p>
<p>“Any chance they’re related, you think?” Thane asked Lana as he twirled her and caught her waist in his hands. Lana flipped her head back and leaned out from him, enjoying the catch of his strong arm. Thane stared at the horizon of her chest as she shouted to Tali.</p>
<p>“Quarians play this type of music?”</p>
<p>Tali shook her silks. She disbelieved Lana’s ignorance. “You deprived Human. You know nothing of what Quarian music has to offer. In fact, we could teach you Humans a thing or two about melody.” She put aside the Savant, which was set to dry in a mosaic of the small cloths she had attached to each of the pieces. Kenn stood, letting her rise. The two began to dance, the beat practically calling them with memories of life in the Flotilla before pilgrimage. Tali had a pang of anxiety, thinking of what her unpleasant conversation with William Clarke had opened her mind to feed on, and she looked anxiously towards Lana.</p>
<p>Who was smiling, clapping her hands.</p>
<p>Garrus pulled out another bottle of Turian whiskey, eyeing it with suspicion.</p>
<p>“I guess it makes sense,” he huffed, “what with knowing Will and that bastard Saren being bosom buddies.” He brought his gaze to Lana and Joker. “Is that the term you Humans use for two dicks rubbing against each other?”</p>
<p>“Oh my God!” Lana cried out. “It’s tits or ass! Not dick, you Goddamn Turian!”</p>
<p>“Hey!” Joker shouted, pointing at Graine, who was happily bobbing in her chair.</p>
<p>Lana covered her mouth as Garrus gave her a sly, knowing look, but Thane pulled her in for another spin and caught her hips. He nuzzled close against her, enjoying the frivolity of the moment. Death, destruction, Initiates, Adjutants, Afterlife, Will. . . He would pass that all up for this, a moment to relax and enjoy, as silly as it might feel.</p>
<p>To anyone watching, with Lana slipping her arms around his neck, the two of them, different species, appeared in love. They did not kiss, not that they didn’t want to. It was odd with everyone about, though enlivened by the beat. So instead, they bounced and swayed to the vibe of music. And then Joker cranked up the volume.</p>
<p>“Ha ha, I actually have Quarian tunes. . . Listen to this, Graine.”</p>
<p>The Vorcha trilled as a mix of lively mandolin-like music, rattles and claps, accompanied with a variety of at least three warbling yet sensual Quarian voices, started to play a piece out of Renweard’Zora’s records.</p>
<p>Lana felt herself removed from Thane. It was by Tali, who showed her how to dance to the musical lyrics. There was a series of flummoxed attempts, but gradually, and with a shot of Turian whiskey as provided by Garrus, Lana’s hips began to move. She set into Tali’s rhythm, the muscle memory slow to pick up at first. Lana was uptight about dancing on her own, even with Tali’s encouragement.</p>
<p>“Shephard! <em>Loosen</em> up!”</p>
<p>She righted the woman by twisting Lana’s hips with three fingers on each hands. Lana spun at Tali’s prompting and yelled out with glee as she almost fell. Thane would have caught her, but Garrus cut in and righted Lana, sending her back to Tali’s arms.</p>
<p>He settled against the wall with Thane, tucking in.</p>
<p>“Been a while since I danced,” he confessed. Nodding at the two females rocking out with laughter and movement, whether to relieve the urge to satisfy the call of the music, or the stress of the past twenty-four hours, “Let the girls do it for us.”</p>
<p>Wrex waggled a claw in his ear. “This noise. . .“</p>
<p>“Is good,” Kolyat finished. He looked at his father. “You mind if I slip in?”</p>
<p>“At the risk of your life?” Thane reminded his son of Lana’s warning.</p>
<p>The young Drell’s face turned its teal and black whorls back towards the women and Kenn.</p>
<p>Lana had taken to the lessons taught by Tali and was now coordinating far better with the Quarian’s motions. So well, in fact, that they had decided to invite Kenn in, who was not doing so poorly, given that he knew the music already. Lana had few worries to violating any Quarian ethics, what with the demand of hip and low back twists required that Tali had shown her were acceptable, even demanded. The method was not so much typical rhythmless grinding present at Alliance shore leaves in the clubs and bars on the Citadel and elsewhere. It was something more graceful, coordinated. . .</p>
<p><em>Erotic</em>, Thane would say. He watched as Lana mesmerized with confounding manipulation of her ankles and hips, improvising a low dip that slowed into a swivel at the bottom of her move. A slip of skin at her waist revealed as Tali squealed with her commander’s new maneuver. Kenn had to step away to catch his breath.</p>
<p>The open vivacity on Lana’s renewed conformation was rather eye catching to the other males aboard the Villetta. Joker chuckled and high-fived Graine, who was oblivious and had to be taught what the gesture was.</p>
<p>“She deserves to blow off a little steam,” he said to his small Vorcha friend.</p>
<p>Garrus took a long draught of whiskey while Wrex shook his skull plate and rumbled something about attempting the eye of a Krogan god. Kolyat drank his coffee, bobbing a little to the music, while his father looked stoically on.</p>
<p>“So that’s what you been wanting nowadays,” Kolyat spoke softly, not to be heard above the music.</p>
<p>Thane swallowed, shallow, not wanting to indulge in the feeling of guilt he experienced whenever he felt a longing for a certain Human. <em>But she’s more than that,</em> he thought, as Lana played into the role Tali had given her. Lana was truly his desire. The way she moved—in fights, or here on the Villetta. . . The moment he had seen her leave that Magistrate’s office. . . She had a confidence to her body that was as natural as the falling of the rain.</p>
<p>“Drink?”</p>
<p>Garrus offered his bottle to Thane who, without looking, grasped the neck, tilted the bottle to his lips, and sipped thoughtfully as Lana veered her eyes to the ceiling and down to her dance partner, a happy smile on the woman’s face near to Tali’s.</p>
<p>He wanted to run his fingers through the loose satin of her hair before tightening it in with his grip and pulling her back for that type of kiss that led to hot thrusts under cool bed sheets.</p>
<p>At the sight of her green eyes passing to his, Thane knew he would have to sleep in a separate compartment for the rest of the ride to Kahje.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0076"><h2>76. Chapter 76</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tali stretched, having tired from the music, and went back to the table where the Savant was laid out in its clothes. She thoughtfully tapped one of the plastic parts with her glove while the music wound down. Lana <em>wooed</em> and sat in the chair that Kenn had occupied. She looked at the Quarian, who turned her visor down to Lana’s face.</p><p>“Lana,” she began, “we have a problem that your ex has brought to light. It involves. . . Well. . . It involves my family.. . The Flotilla.”</p><p>“How big is that family actually?”</p><p>“Fifty three thousand and counting, at least under my admiral’s control. There are more, but they are all under governance by separate leaders. The leaders come together in a conclave, and the conclave selects five admirals to speak for the larger shares of the Fleet. . . My father is one of them.”</p><p>Lana slapped her hand down on the table, disturbing the pieces.</p><p>“Your <em>what</em>?”</p><p>“My father. He is admiral of the fleet, our research division, which is supported by another, but that makes no difference. Not unless. . .”</p><p>“Not unless what,” Lana demanded.</p><p>“Not unless they find out why I’ve really been hiding on pilgrimage.”</p><p>“Why you’ve. . .” Lana shook her head and leaned forward on her elbow. “What do you mean ‘why?’ You found that recording and you were attacked by assassins. What else is there to know?”</p><p>The others had turned their focus from Joker and Graine deejaying more music and were listening intently to Lana and Tali.</p><p>“Cabin. Now.”</p><p>Lana followed Tali up the ramp to the cockpit, and the women proceeded to climb the ladder, Lana’s boots disappearing through the hole.</p><p>In the cabin, Tali held her head and paced while Lana looked on.</p><p>“This is bullshit, Tali. You should have told me you were some admiral’s daughter.”</p><p>“I didn’t want anyone to know. . . Joker heard Will say it.”</p><p>“So you’re only telling me because you’ve been caught, hiding it. Damn it. Tali, what if we’d been picked up? The Migrant Fleet could charge us with kidnapping you!” She was so disappointed, she had to sit down. “You came on this ship knowingly. You knew that if something happened to you, like what almost happened at Omega. . . What if Aria had hurt you? Under my care! Or what if she knew you were some admiral’s daughter? What then? Do you realize what could have happened?” She stared at the Quarian, waiting, tense.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Shephard. It was important that I not tell anyone.”</p><p>“What about Kenn? Does he know?”</p><p>Tali nodded.</p><p>Lana rolled her eyes. “Great, so the two of you are in cahoots.”</p><p>“Shephard, I have to tell you why I am in trouble.”</p><p>Lana removed her hand from her forehead, having covered it to lean back, overwhelmed.</p><p>“What trouble?”</p><p>“My father may think I have abandoned the Fleet and a very important mission. He is responsible for studying Geth advancement since the Morning War, and I have been collecting and sending him Geth parts that I find. I have been unable to do this for a time. Three years to be exact.”</p><p>“And why wouldn’t your father have said something about your hiatus?” Lana asked.</p><p>“He and I. . . Had a bit of an argument the last time I contacted him.” Tali rubbed the side of her mask. “It’s. . . Complicated.”</p><p>“How complicated are we talking here?”</p><p>“Geth complicated. And. . .”</p><p>“Did you mention where your mom was in all this?”</p><p>“My mother died in a ship wide plague that hit the Fleet when I was a child. My father was very hurt by it.”</p><p>“Ah. I’m sorry to hear that.”</p><p>“He never spoke about it with me, but I knew it hurt him because he acted so different when she passed away.”</p><p>“I think I can understand.”</p><p>“The mission, anyway, that my father had me helping him with involved these Geth parts. He was pressuring me to send more, and there are only so many that I can find without going into the Perseus Veil.”</p><p>“Which would be suicide. That’s where all the Geth live, so to speak.”</p><p>“Hide, really. They do not like to venture out. However, occasionally a team does for recon purposes. . . To gather intel on us.”</p><p>“So that recording. . . You took it from. . . A Geth?”</p><p>“That is correct, Shephard.”</p><p>“And this piece of data should have been sent to your father. Am I correct?”</p><p>Lana began to worry at the hem of her shirt bottom. The direction of the conversation was unclear yet, but she had a feeling that Tali was about to blow her away with some news that would be tragic to her plans of meeting up with Cerberus.</p><p>“I was on my way to deliver the data to a hub when I was attacked by the assassins on the Citadel. It forced me to leave, as you know, and the data, and its chip, were never sent. That being said, my Nexus should have been able to send a fragmented copy of the record, but the file was not willing to go through without a boost from another hub point. The Fleet travels a bit too much for there to be a consistent connection.”</p><p>“So you held onto it. . . Until you gave it to me to turn into the Council.”</p><p>“Is everything alright up there?” Thane’s voice came through the ladder vent.</p><p>“Fine,” Lana called down, “for now.”</p><p>“Do I need to be involved?”</p><p>“No,” she snapped, eyes glaring at Tali. “Why do I get the feeling I set something up for you?”</p><p>“You didn’t, but Will said he made up a recording using my voice and my VI’s net address.”</p><p>“So? He was probably lying, just to get a rise out of you.”</p><p>“He played it, Lana. For me, Kenn, and Joker to hear.”</p><p>“He played you a recording?”</p><p>“It was me. My voice. And it said I gave up valuable information that implicates my father and myself in treasonous crimes against the Fleet.”</p><p>“How do you know it was real, or that he actually sent it?”</p><p>“I don’t. That’s the thing. And that I haven’t spoken to my father, well, he could be hiding it. But I don’t want to contact him in case he is being monitored by the other admirals, which could be likely.”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t he just reach out to you if he did receive the message?”</p><p>“He was very upset with me when we last spoke three years ago. I was angry at him. We kind of. . . We kind of let it go with a possible ‘I’ll help you if you leave me alone’ type of agreement.”</p><p>“You would think that if Will actually hijacked your VI and sent the message to the Migrant Fleet, or your father, which is less likely if he wants to get you in trouble—“</p><p>“He said it to make me feel isolated and to beg him to issue an apology, but, of course, that’s not probable, coming from Clarke.”</p><p>“Or the Alliance,” Lana muttered. She crossed her arms. “So what do you want me to do?”</p><p>“I need to find out what the story is with my Fleet, and my father, to know if I can go home and not be met by a surprise detainment party of Quarian guard waiting to apprehend me the moment I board the Neema.”</p><p>“Is that your ship? The one you’re from?”</p><p>“Yes, Shephard. I was born on it. My father, he works on another ship, the Alarei, but he travels to and from. Shephard, if the Admiralty finds out I was smuggling Geth parts to my father while on pilgrimage, he could be charged with endangering the Migrant Fleet.”</p><p>“Did you send live Geth? What’s wrong with parts?”</p><p>“The Geth still contained active code. They were meant to be reinitiated by my father in his labs. It is not so much the lies that Clarke spilled in my doctored recording, but that if my father were to be investigated, these things could be learned of.”</p><p>“Can’t you check your VI to find out if a random message was sent to your father’s address?” Lana got up and began to pace like Tali had been. “Three years without any connection. . . There has to be an obvious bit of evidence if Will sent something from your net address.”</p><p>“Not necessarily.” Tali wrung her hands. “The doctored message could be sent from any computer or device and indicate a mocked up identification as to where it originated from. There would be no way for me to know or prove that it did not come from my net address.”</p><p>“Shit. That’s true,” Lana admitted, fingering her brow. “Well, I guess that means we will have to infiltrate the Migrant Fleet and find out what your father knows and alert him to your need. How would you have sent him Geth parts anyway?”</p><p>“Drop points. Like Kenn.”</p><p>“Is Kenn involved? Is he at risk too?”</p><p>“No. He does not know what happened with my father, but he recorded Will’s message and claim that he had sent it. So there is that going for me, at least.”</p><p>“I guess something good did come out of letting you loose on Omega,” Lana quipped, appraising the young Quarian.</p><p>“I’m sorry about that, Shephard. I didn’t know Aria would do such—“</p><p>“Never mind her. You’re lucky Aria didn’t know who you were. I’d think you were ten times more valuable as a ransom than me as cage bait for entertainment. Her loss, anyway.”</p><p>Tali’s pink eyes blinked at her.</p><p>“Meaning she’s a double conclusive bitch who overshot and got me instead of someone valuable and worth the trouble, Tali.”</p><p>Lana sighed and sat down on the bed, cupping her head in hands while Tali stood quiet and regarded the commander.</p><p>“Shephard,” she said after a time, “I think meeting you has proven to me how valuable a loss you are to the Alliance.I have never met an Alien with as much courage and strength as you. And that you are a mother. . . There is a very special little boy out there who, to him, you are irreplaceable and worth a fortune ten times over.”</p><p>“Thanks, Tali,” Lana said, looking up from her fingers. “I’m not going to be much to him unless I can see him on Kahje. We need to help you with your father and the Fleet, but I have to know that my son is not waiting for me already on the Hanar homeworld. Would you mind if we slept on it for now? I can’t just turn the Villetta off towards dark space, or wherever your Fleet might be. Plus, I need to talk to Thane.”</p><p>“Lana, another thing,” Tali added. “The Misrephoth-Maim has foundations of Quarian planning. I have seen blueprints for it in my father’s research. Its existence would further exacerbate my chances to prove that what Will’s lies carried to my father were untrue.”</p><p>“So you’re telling me that your father might already be waiting to apprehend you himself,” Lana conjectured.</p><p>Tali nodded.</p><p>“How strict are the Quarians about ID?”</p><p>She appeared puzzled, what with the tilt of her visor.</p><p>“I. . . D?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0077"><h2>77. Chapter 77</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You would <em>not</em> be able to impersonate Tali,” Thane said immediately.</p><p>They were back with the crew below cabin and cockpit. Lana started to laugh.</p><p>“I didn’t mean Tali. I meant as another Quarian.”</p><p>“Lana, you got curves that kill the Quarians’. I’d vote you into any conclave,” Joker called through the speakers, listening by com.</p><p>“I need to reach Tali’s father somehow. Get a message to him about what Tali told me.”</p><p>“You’re joking, right?” Garrus houghed. “You violate a Migrant ship, you’ll be shot on sight.”</p><p>“What do you know about the flotilla?” Thane asked, nearly ridiculing her for the wild idea she had relayed to him with Tali’s help. “You cannot successfully perform this mission and hope to survive. And what of Cerberus? Your son? Graine?” He indicated the Vorcha hanging on pipes in the ceiling of the rampway.</p><p>“I was hoping you could handle a little babysitting while I help Tali get back to her fleet.”</p><p>Kenn seemed nervous, listening to the atrocious plan. “This would be very bad for me,” he said. “Helping a non-Quarian infiltrate a Fleet vessel would be seen as treason.” He added, “Punishable by death.”</p><p>“Oh, Kenn,” Tali moaned out loud, “get a grip. You’re not the one smuggling her.”</p><p>“Who is then?” he asked, alarmed yet intrigued.</p><p>“Reegar.”</p><p>“The captain of the guard?” Kenn gasped, nearly sucking his mouthpiece into his throat and choking with a cough. “He’s. . . He’s a loyalist!”</p><p>“And he evidently works for Tali on the side,” Lana said, smiling at her Quarian.</p><p>“This is crazy.” Thane shook his head.</p><p>“Tali has been a help to this ship and its team. She deserves our aid after all she has done, twice over. I want her to go home, knowing she can without fear of being arrested and tried for treason.”</p><p>“For what exactly?” Wrex rumbled.</p><p>“For a lie of recorded messages that implicate Tali has stolen information from the fleet to sell to the Alliance and Council,” Lana half-truthed. “We can do this. . . Be in and out.”</p><p>Thane grabbed her wrist, tugging her up to the cabin, climbing with Lana nearly hauled on his back.</p><p>“That was <em>really</em> unnecessary,” she said, once she’d stepped off in the upper level. “I’d appreciate being <em>asked</em> to move rather than dragged next time.”</p><p>“You cannot go to the Migrant Fleet, Lana,” Thane admonished her, eyes wide. “They would kill you as Garrus said.”</p><p>“Tali seems to think that this Reegar is trustworthy. He’s a soft spot for her. I can gain access to the Alarei or the ship where Tali’s father is when we arrive, and he will help me find the admiral. I could send you,” she considered, eyeing him up and down, “but I think that her father might be less inclined to speak with a Drell whose skin is venomous and who happens to be an assassin by trade. Besides.” She turned away and moved to a rack, from which her Quarian uniform and Dae’s collar and the miracle suit were being hung. “I think I would make a better looking Quarian than you. No offense.”</p><p>His hand caught hers before it could touch the Quarian suit. He pulled her against him.</p><p>“Let me go instead. I can find my way around a ship without being detected.”</p><p>“Or fall into one of the Quarian filters, which must be monstrous on a Migrant vessel,” she murmured, looking into his eyes.</p><p>“You make me very nervous right now,” he admitted. “This plan is quite dangerous, and too much hangs on being out in the open with a strange Quarian who could turn you in and worse. Not to mention you would be simply scandalous walking around a ship wearing that ensemble Tali put together.”</p><p>“It’s either Dae’s costume or Tali’s, and the benefit of the latter is that Rael, her father, would know the visor and silks belonged to Tali.”</p><p>“So you <em>are</em> going to wear the Quarian wetsuit I’ve only wanted to make love to you in.” He frowned. “You will be more than just treasonous scandal, I’m sure. And what about this Reegar? You don’t think you’re putting him at risk, too?”</p><p>“He’ll know better than I what the consequences are,” she replied, nudging nose against his in a tempting tease of kiss. She was trying to seduce him to give her his blessing.</p><p>Thane emitted a low growl from his chest.</p><p>“You also didn’t think of me as you were conspiring up here with Tali for this plot.”</p><p>“I couldn’t distract you from your current set of goals, now, could I?”</p><p>He bumped his nose bridge against hers as they caught in a lip embrace. Thane cupped the small of her back, then slid his hand around to her waist.</p><p>“Are you two coming back down?” Garrus called up. “Maybe give us an ETA?”</p><p>Lana chuckled, resting her brow against his.</p><p>“Hurry up,” Kolyat called second, “I want to see her put on the Quarian suit.”</p><p>“Are you going to play tight with this Reegar fellow as well?” Thane asked, kneading her waist with his fingers.</p><p>“A woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do to make things happen, don’t she?”</p><p>“I’m going to hold you to that next time I have you in bed.”</p><p> </p><p>They descended from the cabin and rejoined the others.</p><p>“What’s the story?”</p><p>“We’re doing it,” Lana said to Garrus. “We hit up Kahje first, see whom I’m to meet, drop off some guests.” She looked at Graine, Wrex, and Kolyat, who immediately grew defensive.</p><p>“I’m not staying on Kahje,” Kolyat protested.</p><p>“No one said you were.” Lana twisted her mouth. “You’d only be there until my son arrived.”</p><p>Garrus looked at Kolyat and began to laugh, but the teal and black Drell seemed better with this alternative. He nodded his chin in acquiescence.</p><p>“Then we’ll go to the fleet,” she said to Tali, “and meet up with your friend.”</p><p>“It will need to be off site,” said Tali, “which might be hard for Kal to pull off, seeing he has duties. . . But if he is already on travel, we could rendezvous.”</p><p>“No, no.” Thane argued, “How would we know it was not a trap for you, Tali, or that Lana could be identified by the Quarians and turned into the Alliance? Corsairs aside.”</p><p>“There is a transport hub usually within vicinity of the Migrant Fleet’s customary routes. We would have to use it to board with a Flotilla ship anyway,” Kenn shared.</p><p>Lana cupped her lips and thought. “I like that. A transport hub most likely would be hectic and have a high number of pilgrims, right? I would be able to meet with this Reegar and be less conspicuous with other Quarians around.”</p><p>“Lana, you seem to forget that you look like a walking wet dream in that suit,” Thane said offhand, inspecting his knuckles. He then cast her a knowing smile.</p><p>“Then maybe it will work at getting me an audience with your father. What was his name?”</p><p>“Rael’Zorah,” Tali said. “And fat chance. I’ve never seen him even look another Quarian since my mother.”</p><p>“It’s not like I’m going to seduce him, Tali,” Lana scoffed. “We just need to get his attention, and privately, then ask him what he knows and tell him you want to come home.”</p><p>“What about Reegar? Is he a threat at all?” Garrus asked, concerned.</p><p>“He should be expected to be suspicious,” Tali clarified, “but that should go without saying. Quarians are not so trusting of strangers, but we are warm to each other. He will trust in me if not Shephard. I don’t think he’ll cuff her either, though in that suit you put on, Lana, he might want to.”</p><p>“Who’s the captain for the ship?”</p><p>“His name is Han’Gerrel. He is a childhood friend of my father’s. Also good,” Tali opined.</p><p>“<em>Han’Gerrel</em>? Your captain is <em>the</em> Han’Gerrel?”</p><p>Tali blinked her glowing eyes at Garrus.</p><p>“What about him?” Lana asked, curious by the Turian’s reaction.</p><p>“He’s a pain in the Hierarchy’s ass,” Garrus answered. “Been causing trouble along the Turian borders for years. <em>You’re</em> from that lot?” he asked Tali, appreciating her. “No wonder you’re in deep trouble. Must be a profile they look for to recruit under his leadership.”</p><p>Tali would have blushed. It was a compliment.</p><p>Lana clapped her hands. “It’s time for rest. Joker, ETA for Kahje?”</p><p>“Seven hours, Lana.”</p><p>“Right.” She addressed the crew. “We’ve all gone a long stretch without sleep. Crew quarters can be found downstairs. Help yourselves to beds. I’ll be grabbing myself a nightcap and going to the loft. Anyone join me?”</p><p>She nodded to Thane. They made for the galley.</p><p>“I want some of that Turian whiskey that’s left over before I hit the sack.”</p><p>Kolyat joined them. Lana stopped at the fridge and pulled out the bottle of chilling whiskey.</p><p>“Who wants some?”</p><p>Kolyat also took the bottle from her as he had taken down three steel cups from the cabinets and set these out along the counter.</p><p>“You shouldn’t drink before you go to sleep,” Thane said, but he didn’t protest as Kolyat handed him a serving.</p><p>“To seeing my son again.” Lana raised her cup.</p><p>“To a fruitful visit on Kahje,” Thane added.</p><p>As he took the cup to his mouth, his eyes closed.</p><p>“Dad?” Kolyat caught the tremor in his father’s hand, distinctive by the way the whiskey rippled in the cup, which had begun to slosh. “Dad, it’s okay,” he soothed, controlling his father’s wrist.</p><p>“What is it?” Lana asked, alert to the fact something was wrong, but she was unfamiliar with Drell memory slips.</p><p>“Nothing,” Thane and Kolyat replied simultaneously.</p><p>“Nothing like Hell,” Lana tersely cut back. She stared at the two. “I don’t need to be a psychiatrist to know when I smell bullshit. What just happened? I know you two are covering for something. . . Was it something he said? Kahje, right?”</p><p>Thane and Kolyat looked to each other.</p><p>“I should probably tell her,” Thane asked more than said as he waited for Kolyat’s response.</p><p>“Tell me what?”</p><p>Kolyat’s gaze went to Lana. He considered her, whether she was worthy. With a pour of his cup into the mouth, he set this down on the sink and embraced her, surprising Lana as he whispered in her ear.</p><p>“Goodnight, Lana. . . How about a kiss before I go to bed?”</p><p>She shoved the joking Drell off, scowling as Kolyat chuckled and went to find the route to the lower deck.</p><p>“Go for it, Dad,” he called over shoulder, causing Kenn and Tali to look up from Lana’s Savant. “Might as well do it before we arrive. I’m going to snap some Zs.” He turned before he went downstairs and dipped his black chin respectfully before jauntily taking to the steps.</p><p>Thane turned to Lana and touched their cups together. Drinking as he watched her, Thane cleared his throat with an <em>ah</em>. Their cups joined again in the sink.</p><p>“Kahje was where my wife and I settled after we met,” he said. “My son was born there. My wife’s last days were there.”</p><p>Lana tipped her brow. “You want to talk to me about it?”</p><p>“Yes.” He nodded to the bathroom.</p><p>They brought the bottle of whiskey with them, and closed the door as the rest of the crew settled into their respective places.</p><p>“I apologize,” Thane said, his voice somewhat echoed by the emptiness of the shower stall and space. “I have withheld this information. I did not feel the time was appropriate when we were on the Citadel. . . And our opportunities for seclusion have been. . . Complex.”</p><p>“Well, thanks.” She took the bottle from him and sipped. “You have me fascinated by all of the mystery. That, and and how we came to have sex the first time.”</p><p>She waited. Thane settled his hip against the counter, tucking his hands into his pockets.</p><p>“There was a drellahna, whom I met one day on one of my. . . Assignments. . . Before Cerberus.”</p><p>“This where you tell me she’s still alive and you’ve been cheating on her with me?”</p><p>He gave her a sharp look. Lana faced away. He noticed her arms had crossed defensively over her bust.</p><p>“You know my wife is dead. . . Do you want me to tell you the story or not?” he asked, pulling her arms away from her chest and wrapping these around him.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she breathed, staring down at his tebris. “I’m just prepared for more bad news. . . I can’t help it.”</p><p>Thane touched her chin with a curved finger, raising it so she had to look him in the eye. He bent his head to kiss her, a soft, dry kiss that let both their ears listen to the sound of its event.</p><p>He cleared his throat after, and Lana relaxed.</p><p>“The day I met my wife,” he began, “I was contemplating nothing besides how to make a bullet find its way five miles into a Salarian war criminal’s brain.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Lana hummed, “you were already the romantic even before you met her, huh?”</p><p>Thane chuckled, leaning with her slightly back. “Not quite what I would say, but, yes, I was the sweet and sensitive killer type”</p><p>“And that, I take it, is why she fell in love with you.”</p><p>A far off look seeped into his eyes. “She was everything I wasn’t. I fell in love with her through the scope of a rifle, and she hated me for what I did with that rifle. I had never known someone so strange to my world, and yet so uniquely beautiful.” His gaze refocused on Lana, having grown distant. “You would be the second.”</p><p>She smiled, caressing him at this declaration.</p><p>“Irikah was her name,” he said, not looking away from her. “She was my exit from my battle sleep, the darkness one finds for comfort when all else around him is death. In a way, she awoke me from my slumber, but now, sometimes when I am alone and brooding at the loss Kolyat and I sustained, her family as well, I think. . . That I wish. . . I had never woken up.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because,” he sighed, rough voice rattling, “it would mean she would still be alive. . . And saving people worthy of being saved.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0078"><h2>78. Chapter 78</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Implied sexual relations ahead. Non-consensual. The aftermath of a murder.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The door was unlocked. My family would have been home. There was no sound coming out. I did not see who had been there, but I could scent numerous profiles aside from my child and my wife. I had just run miles through a dense jungle from the capitol to find who had violated my cottus, my home.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It came to me through a call on my omnitool.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Irikah’s warning.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I left everything behind except my sidearm and knife. I would bother later with collecting my belongings from the hotel. I had little chance of reaching her in time.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No one greeted me at the door. I pushed it wider to let myself in and searched about, detecting with my eyes, nose, ears, and senses beyond which only instinct can describe. I didn’t know who had been there, but every fiber in my being knew it had been someone who had discovered who I was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And who was important to me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The kitchen had little footprints left in blood. I turned off the alarm over the stove, a pinging that spoke softly of a timer. I followed the footprints, recognizing these to be my son’s.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I found him in his boudicea, hiding among his toys. He ran to me once he saw it was I.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Picking him up, I held him. He was quiet. I loathe to think why.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Carrying him with me, I went to find Irikah. It was not difficult, not with Kolyat’s bloody footprints coming from the room where I found her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I had to put Kolyat down. His hands reached for me, his teal black crests shaking left and right. I told him to wait for me in the washroom that was near.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The door to my wife’s boudicea, our bedroom, was open only enough for Kolyat to have gone through. I fell into battle sleep, letting the peace take me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But when I found her, not even my battle sleep could save me the pain.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She had been tortured. Unspeakable atrocities had been done. I had been taught to always kill swiftly. It was merciful for a deed so ugly as murder. I wondered at all the possible victims I had cleansed from this world. I could not think of one person who would be the culprit easily distinguished by my wife’s condition.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I sat down beside her and pulled her head into my lap. The scent of her fear still lingers. I touched her scales. I felt her lips. Her eyes had the look of pain. She did not go well.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I used my fingers to close her eyelids. I lifted her shoulders, pulling her higher to my chest. Murmuring her name, I rocked her back and forth, tight in my arms, the essence of her body coating my vest.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I had sworn to protect her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Something inside me broke. All that she had taught me of peace, love, compassion, floated away through that breach. I felt cold and empty, devoid of everything we had shored together.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>My fingers clenched into fists over her clothes. A moan escaped my lips. I hung my head to hers, touching her temple with my brow. She was asleep, it seemed, what with her eyes closed, and I enjoyed some comfort in imagining she truly was. But the scent of her killers and what they left of her body were more than enough to jolt me from this fantasy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I made it my purpose then to find her killers and teach them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Teach them that to walk into a dragon’s den and steal that which is most precious to him, will set his soul afire.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And in his blaze, consume them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I kissed Irikah on cold lips, not caring these were no longer warm. I laid her back on the bed and drew the sheets around her. When I noticed what was on the sheets, I looked down at Irikah, understanding what else they had taken.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In calm rage, I carried her from the bed to the bath.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I ran water. It didn’t matter that I was washing evidence away. No one had my resources. No forensics would be able to determine with sureness who her violators were. I bathed her clean until the water that ran red slowly turned to pink, then clear, save for tendrils of blood still emptying from her wounds.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Kolyat appeared next to me, and I let him watch as I wrapped her in towels and set her head against a soft roll at the end of the bath.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We will need to wrap her in kelp, as is the way of the Hanar here on Kahje. She will be delivered to the Encompassing and spirited to Kalahira’s shores. She will wait for us there, and we will go to her when our time is come. Kolyat. We will see her again.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Is Mom not coming back?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, Kolyat. She has gone ahead of us. Too soon.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“They were hurting her.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I turned to him, placing Irikah to rest, alone, in our bath.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Kolyat, I am going to have to ask you to do something that your mother would disapprove of.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His blue green eyes, tinged with gold, sought mine from his mother’s face. I did not want to ask him, but he was of the age of periphetes and could begin recall of memories, things he had seen, in perfect detail.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I had to use him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I need to know what you saw, Kolyat. Can you go back, as we have taught you, and tell me what happened?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I put my hand on his shoulder and watched as his eyes focused somewhere in the past. He started the tale of what had happened from his three-year-old perspective. I was so proud of him, and I hated myself for having to use him to relive the last moments he had witnessed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I stopped him when I had heard enough of the descriptions of the home invaders. I did not want to hear, nor have him experience, again, what they did to her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>From what I had heard, Irikah had seen the invaders and hid Kolyat in a vent before calling me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There were Batarians. There was Drell. About eight. One was doing most of the abuse. The others did not participate, but asked questions. They asked of me. They asked where my son was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Irikah gave them nothing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Your mother loved you. You know that, right? She did what she did to protect you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His little chest rose and fell behind the white shirt he was wearing, and I saw it had blood on it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Come with me, to the other washroom, and we will clean you before I call your uncle.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He took my hand after I kissed Irikah’s forehead, and we left her, cleaned, in eternal sleep.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0079"><h2>79. Chapter 79</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So what happened after?”</p><p>Thane tilted his head side to side, not want to admit the next part, even though Lana, of all people, had to understand.</p><p>“I left him with his uncle, Hiatt, and his aunt, Luna. They were the only ones I could think of at the time.”</p><p>Lana nodded her chin understandingly. “I guess it doesn’t matter whether they were fit to take care of him.”</p><p>Thane rumbled a sigh, knowing what he heard unspoken in her words. “They were very good to him. In Hiatt, as well as Luna, I was fortunate.”</p><p>“Were you close with them?” she asked, tipping the bottle for him to drink.</p><p>Thane shook his head, avoiding the offer. “I prefer not to drink after I have started my memory trips. . . It can be a problem for me.”</p><p>“Do you mind if I ask whether you turned to alternate needs after your wife died and you left Kolyat with family?” She placed the bottle down on the counter and capped it.</p><p>“Once. . . I had a weak moment,” he confessed, pulling on his tebris with nervous fingers.</p><p>“Was it alcohol or something else?” she asked.</p><p>“It was both, to be honest.” He had on a sheepish smile. “Have you ever heard of mindfish?”</p><p>“No,” she replied with a grin implying she knew scandal was about to be revealed.</p><p>“I had some while I was waiting for a lead on Kahje. It is a fish with a very potent, hallucinogenic oil that one eats with a glass of syver, Kahjic grown brandy. . . Which happens to already be laced with Drell and Hanar venoms.”</p><p>“Sounds like an acid trip on an acid trip, not that I would know. . . Save from my sampling of you.”</p><p>“Yes, well, it is quite strong and I am not one to use recreational methods of relaxation. Hardly, if ever. It was only one time, and I regretted it.”</p><p>“So can I ask what became of her killers, Thane, or are you going to leave me wondering?”</p><p>“As you may already know, I found them one by one and took their lives, but not without extracting as much from them as I possibly could,” he said, rubbing his lips thoughtfully. “I let them drag, life being pain for them as I’m sure it was for my Irikah in her final moments. They spoke with the hope that I would be lenient and deliver them quickly to their ends, but one question led to another, and,” he grinned, self-satisfied, “I was a very curious Drell at the time. There was one more left, by the name of Stiv Kay, but I am waiting on his location to be provided once I have brought you to the Illusive Man. You have been somewhat of a bargaining chip in return for this information I need, and Kolyat’s longevity of life. You see, you are worth every credit I have spent to bring you this far, and more, once we reach our destination.</p><p>Lana’s face was calm as she listened with impassive indifference.</p><p>“But since meeting you,” he went on, “I have found myself involved with a kindred spirit that I, too, like Garrus, and not,” he winked, “would like to continue to share my body with <em>and</em> my spirit.”</p><p>“Well, I wasn’t expecting anything romantic, either,” Lana snorted, stiffening both elbows into bends as she folded these up below her breasts. “I’m sorry for your loss, Thane, and I’m happy I’ll be serving up the final piece of data with my exchange to Cerberus.”</p><p>“It’s not like that, Lana,” Thane said, crossed. “Not entirely, but I would be deceiving myself, and you, if I were to deny that the only reason I bartered my services to Cerberus to begin with, was to find out where Stiv Kay was currently hiding, and you know my son’s life was also in the barter.”</p><p>“You were forced to come after me, I know, but you turned it to your advantage, didn’t you? You get to avenge your wife fully, get laid by me in the process, and enjoy the ride with everyone we’ve met so far.”</p><p>“Don’t be so defensive,” he said, chortling and rubbing her arms up and down the sides. “You know how much I like you. In fact, I think I’m falling in love with you.” He turned her so that her back was to the sink and mirror. Pulling her hair off her neck, he kissed her in the small divot between her collarbone and throat. “And the way you were dancing makes me think terrible thoughts about what you would do for pleasure without me pulling off your pants and telling you how excited you make me.”</p><p>“Thane,” she huffed and pushed him away, he blinking his black eyes at her in puzzlement. “You can’t expect me to feel turned on after just hearing about how your wife died. . . Are you that moved on now you can just share that sort of thing and still want to be laid afterwards? Christ,” she said with a disapproving scowl. “No thanks.”</p><p>“Lana, I didn’t. . .” He sighed. “You’re right, my timing was off. Naturally, I am less the romantic sort and more a Drell of action, and I am sorry.”</p><p>He needed her not to be mad with him. Thane thought of what his son would do.</p><p>He adopted the widest black eyes he could muster and tilted his head at her, Lana only slowly grasping that he was trying to pull off an expression of abject innocence. Despite this realization, she asked, “What do you think you’re doing?”</p><p>“I’m trying to think what Kolyat would do to try and please you out of your current stubbornness,” he explained, tilting his head the other way, and batting all four eyelids.</p><p>“Oh, please,” she groaned, pushing his face away as he tenderly blocked her hands and lowered these to his sides.“You start following his example, I’ll have to biotically punch out both of you.” She exhaled and found him closer than before, purring from his throat as he brushed her lips with his.</p><p>“Irikah taught me many things that I believed I had lost, one such being able to love another.” He gazed into her eyes. They kissed briefly, and again, the level of his purr increasing.</p><p>“What else did she teach you?”</p><p>“How to change diapers, and how to kiss. Not in that order,” he laughed into her neck, running his nosetip along her skin. Lana <em>hmmed</em> and dipped her chin down to intercept him by mouth as he came up by her ear. He kissed her with his lips partly open, the corners pulling back in a smile as hers sought more pressure, and Thane’s hands kneaded her wrists, slid up her forearms to her biceps before squeezing, letting go, and circumventing her lower back to draw her away from the vanity.</p><p><em>I love you,</em> he thought, but didn’t speak it aloud.</p><p><em>I love you,</em> she said in her head, but wouldn’t dare utter because of how inappropriate it would feel after he had just told her about his wife’s death. She wanted to honor the woman, not take the Drell who was still fighting to redeem her. For a moment, she wondered if by kissing Thane, she was doing Irikah an insult, but had she known the drellahna, the mitali of Thane Krios would have only approved.</p><p>Because her husband deserved a far better fate than the one he had walked alone for so long.</p><p> </p><p>He laid her down on the bed, having climbed the ladder to the cabin with her following. They turned around the picture frame of David’s beaming face, and Lana rolled on top of Thane, more or less being positioned over him by his own hands. Looking up into her eyes, he rolled his knuckles into her hips, grinding slowly, urging tension out of the lower, powerful musculature. Her eyes half closed as hair fell over her cheek, and Thane’s thrumming built.</p><p>“Lay down with me,” he breathed, nodding his chin beside him, and she went, lowering herself after sliding one leg over his waist and abdomen.</p><p>She rest her hand against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart, strong and sound.</p><p>“You love me, don’t you?” she asked next to his teness.</p><p>“I think you think the same,” he murmured against her cheek. “So in love with yourself,” he then added, teasing her.</p><p>She slapped his chest, making a little curl with her mouth and rolling away, giving him the ‘cold’ shoulder.</p><p>“How else do you think I survived Aria’s little challenges? Self-loathing? Please, I’m too in love with myself to let that bitch hand me a superiority check.”</p><p>He chuckled, grazing her shoulder with his nails as he inclined himself, propped with his hand supporting his tebris along the jaw. “That was. . . An impressive ordeal, the way in which you performed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the type of boots you wore.”</p><p>“Yeah. . . Too bad I lost them,” she said, unhappy. She craned her head back at him, rolling her eyes up to see his. “Did Garrus place bets on me?”</p><p>“I think he was the only one rooting <em>for</em> your ‘ass whooping’. . . Is that the terminology?” he asked, squinting his eyes.</p><p>“Yeah,” she answered, relaxing her neck so she faced forward again, and lost herself in thought. “That bastard, rooting against me. . .”</p><p>“I’m only kidding,” he assured her, weaving an arm under her elbow and down around her waist, as he nestled in closer and nuzzled her hair.</p><p>“Oh, well, that’s not nice,” she chastised him, a playful slap on his arm as she hugged it against her belly. “Those were three tough fights. I won’t even tell you what happened with the egg-laying Adjutant.”</p><p>“Weren’t you going to tell me what happened with Aria and you in the Well?”</p><p>“Oh.” She smiled. “<em>That</em>.”</p><p>Thane let her roll to face him, snuggled in close.</p><p>“Aria got a mouthful of afterbirth.”</p><p>He made a face.</p><p>“Afterbirth?”</p><p>“Afterbirth. . . And it <em>looked</em> as foul as it smelled.”</p><p>Taking her hand, he kissed this, rubbed it over with his fingers, and headed her brow.</p><p>“Whatever will you have in store for me next, Lana Shephard? I do find you quite entertaining.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0080"><h2>80. Chapter 80</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rain pelted the glass of the Villetta. <em>So this is Kahje,</em> Lana thought, strumming Thane’s tebris as he held her and they gazed out the window together.</p>
<p>“Vassla’s peak is in the distance,” he hummed, rubbing his chin in her hair, “do you see the volcano? Most of it is underwater.”</p>
<p>“Is it active?”</p>
<p>“No,” he chuckled, drawing her eyes to his mouth, “that would be unfortunate, what with so many being there. You see, in the caldera, there is an entrance to a lower network of archives. It is Prothean, the Archive, and the Hanar guard it jealously much like any species that has the means to understand and use Prothean technology for their benefit.”</p>
<p>He grinned at her, and then his face grew serious. Pushing down on her chin, he tilted his head and they kissed, warm and tender. He pulled away and looked at her nose, eyes.</p>
<p>“We will find out if David is here today.”</p>
<p>“You think he will be?” she asked, glancing between his lenses.</p>
<p>“Perhaps. . . Perhaps not. Don’t get your hopes up. . . We should be realistic.”</p>
<p>“You said he would.”</p>
<p>“I did, but Feron believed the location he was being held at was quite fortified. We will pray that both David and Feron come back to us.”</p>
<p>Lana let him lead her from the cockpit down to the kitchen, where Tali and Kenn were searching for Quarian friendly food and Garrus had assisted by pulling open most of the cabinets.</p>
<p>“Good morning you three. Any chance you’d seen Graine?” Lana asked, pulling out a silver squeeze pack of brightly labeled dextro-acids. She tossed these to Tali and Kenn.</p>
<p>“We saw her go downstairs to wake Kolyat while Joker went to change,” Tali answered, attaching the silver pack to a nodule on her suit and letting it sterilize the seal.</p>
<p>“Where’s Wrex then?”</p>
<p>The bathroom flushed. Thane and Lana moved quickly out of the way as Wrex opened the door, grunted hello, and made for the exit.</p>
<p>“I got to get an early start. Hump’s in need of this rain,” he rumbled, disengaging the look and nodding to Lana. “You gonna be around for a while?”</p>
<p>“Probably,” Lana said, glancing at Thane. “Give the Savant a ping. Tali has mine up and working again.”</p>
<p>“I’ll just call Kolyat. I got his detail. Or Joker. See you around, Shephard. Thane. Others.”</p>
<p>He bobbed his hump at Garrus, Kenn, and Tali before stepping out and down into the gusts of water whipping through the air. The door slammed behind him, unintentional. A shout came from below deck.</p>
<p>“Stop making so much noise up there,” Kolyat complained.</p>
<p>“So what do I have to do first?” Lana turned to Thane, picking up her omnitool and sliding it over her arm.</p>
<p>“We are going to restock the Villetta and I am going to take you to your future contractor, but not,” he added, “before we experience a little of the Kahjic life together.”</p>
<p>Kolyat came up from the crew cabins. “When are we gonna get some grub? I’m starving.”</p>
<p>“You’re staying here,” Lana refreshed his memory. “Graine duty.”</p>
<p>The little Vorcha showed up on cue, between Joker and Kolyat.</p>
<p>“For how long?” he asked, looking behind him at Graine who was growling at the refrigerator. He moved out of the way so she could go nudge Garrus to open the door and feed her.</p>
<p>“An hour? Two?” she asked Thane.</p>
<p>Kolyat looked from her to his father, a sly grin creeping on his handsome, rugged jaw. “I bet three.”</p>
<p>Lana passed him as he made to the fridge, reaching over for a poured cup of coffee already set on the counter.</p>
<p>“Four if you keep giving him weird looks.”</p>
<p>“Does she know what to expect when she gets into the holly?” Kolyat asked his father, who calmly shook his head.</p>
<p>“What’s to expect?”</p>
<p>“Drell don’t get a lot of Human visitors, much less any Alien for that matter,” Garrus filled in, lowering a can of some pasta type sauce into a bowl and handing this to Graine, who drained it like stew. “You’ll be a bit of a surprise to everyone, so best to be on good behavior.”</p>
<p>“Why would Cerberus make this place our meet up?”</p>
<p>“They have access to the Archive, which have secure tunnels and chambers for private or sensitive discussions,” Thane explained, corralling her into his arms. “They prefer to have this meeting with you in one such chamber.”</p>
<p>“Mount Vassla?”</p>
<p>He nodded. “Rest assured, the Illuminated Primacy has given its blessing <em>and</em> permission with a donation by the Illusive Man.”</p>
<p>Lana frowned and looked over her shoulder at Kolyat, who was biting into an apple he found and watching her with smiling eyes.</p>
<p>“Sounds fishy to me.”</p>
<p>“You have no idea,” Thane said, intimating that she should use the facilities before they go. “The chamber is underwater, thus the superb security and confidentiality that we should look forward to.”</p>
<p>“It’s not very secure or confidential if we know about it now, is it?” Garrus chuffed, squeezing a dextro pack through his placido and licking the extra with his tongue. He was wolfish in comparison to Tali and Kenn, who were just now transferring their dextro packs to their head suits.</p>
<p>“Amusing,” Lana said as she flicked the fan on in the bathroom, “Graine eats more civilized than he does, a grown Turian. Mind cleaning up the mess off your mandibles? Yeah, you missed a spot or two.” She closed the door.</p>
<p>Garrus grabbed a paper towel and began to wipe his face clean. “What?”</p>
<p>The others were watching him and comparing his face with the Vorcha’s, which was relatively spotless in comparison.</p>
<p>“She has drawn a fair point,” Thane observed, picking up a napkin and dabbing it at Garrus’s chest.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0081"><h2>81. Chapter 81</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ‘holly’ was a glass domed holosphere. Lana had donned her Corsairs uniform, preferring the boots and pants to the special suit Dae had provided her and that needed a sew job to repair the bullet hole in the right lower panel. She looked official and felt slightly more at ease in comfortable clothes. Thane walked beside her, avoiding appearing too close, but his eyes were darting back and forth between scanning their surroundings and the woman with awe in her eyes.</p>
<p>A Drell with green markings on his face and tebris approached and offered them a sample of food from a café. Lana politely accepted.</p>
<p>“Do you think it’s safe for me to eat?” She turned the small pastry slice, about the size of a morsel, in her hand on its silver serving disc. The other Drell waited.</p>
<p>“You must remove the backstere from the disc, Human, and return it to the server for him to reclean.”</p>
<p>Lana and Thane looked over at the Drell who’d spoken, addressing her.</p>
<p>“Kala, it’s an overton,” Thane murmured to Lana behind her head. “Watch my lead and don’t engage him if he talks rudely to you. They are bored and underutilized, the Hanar preferring to keep them for when they are necessary.”</p>
<p>“And would this be a time they considered necessary by some Hanar I don’t know about?” Lana asked, removing the pastry and replacing the sample disc with the server tray. He swept away when Thane took a sample for himself, sniffed, and nodded.</p>
<p>Black eyes shuttered, one lid, then two. “Kalia, from IP. I’m sure you remember me, Sere Krios.”</p>
<p>“I do,” Thane said, walking over and greeting Kalia, a blue and green Drell with diverse markings on his face. There were scars among the diamonds of green. He had treated eyes like Thane and Kolyat’s. In fact, everyone Lana could see had the treatments in place. She watched the overton stand to greet Thane, and saw the pair equal in height.</p>
<p>“Lana,” Thane beckoned her to come close, gesturing politely at Kalia who was still watching her, “this is Overton Kalia, an acquaintance I made some time ago.”</p>
<p>“Lana Shephard,” she replied, taking hold of an offered hand. She flinched when the Drell exerted pressure and turned her wrist over. <em>Jesus</em>. “Do you want to see the other one’s attached to me as well?”</p>
<p>“You reminded me of someone,” Kalia explained, letting her hand go, “and I had to be sure.” He didn’t apologize. “Here for business?”</p>
<p>“Some sight seeing,” Thane replied, putting his arm through Lana’s and leading her a step back, more to prevent her from assailing the Drell if he touched her again.</p>
<p>“Strange place for a Human to be sight seeing,” Kalia replied, staring at Lana. “You wouldn’t be the first, but we usually have Humans go through the embassy before entering the holospheres from the cofahealh.”</p>
<p>“Cofa what?”</p>
<p>“It’s a transfer station,” Thane said under his breath. To Kalia, he smiled, “We should be going.”</p>
<p>“I found out some information about you, Thane,” Kalia said, finally reaching the point for why he had interfered with their walk. “I know about Trumhall.”</p>
<p>Thane urged Lana to keep walking.</p>
<p>“Keep your eyes ahead,” he whispered.</p>
<p>Kalia watched the two disappear around the next bend of buildings and shops, headed deeper into the city.</p>
<p>“Awful strange, indeed,” he muttered, paying his tab by the waiter who had arrived to refill his glass of water. Kalia hopped a fence surrounding the diners of the café and followed after Thane and his Human.</p>
<p>“What the Hell was that about?” Lana demanded, but still walked on and didn’t turn to look behind her though she wanted to.</p>
<p>“Remember the story I told you about Irikah and that I found everyone involved?” he asked, ushering her down a side alley that did not deserve the label, it was so clean and well lit.</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“Trumhall happens to be the name of a Drell involved in Irikah’s murder.”</p>
<p>“And he’s, what, an investigation for that guy back there?”</p>
<p>“He was an overton providing information traders with lists of special agents working for the Illuminated Primacy. It is how my information was found and he personally led the Batarians to Irikah and Kolyat.”</p>
<p>“So are overtons here like cops on my homeworld?”</p>
<p>“It is an enforcement agency, yes.”</p>
<p>They cut through a garden with red and white flowers, and Thane stopped to pick a white one that he dropped behind his jacket panel. Lana looked at him questioningly as he gave her a small grin and took her hand, leading her up a staircase exposed on the side of the building. It let them to a walkway and down another narrow staircase, Thane leading her as he glanced once to see if they had any pursuit to mind, and when they reached the other side of the building, he caught a travel cab to the next holly, effectively leaving Kalia.</p>
<p>“Are you being investigated for Trumhall’s murder?” Lana whispered behind the window separating the driver from them.</p>
<p>Thane slipped out his flower from his jacket and handed this to her.</p>
<p>“Don’t concern yourself over it. Here.”</p>
<p>“What is this?” She handled the pretty white bloom gingerly, feeling its soft as silk petals fall open in her hand. “And you’re not getting off so easy. I want to know what trouble you’re in.”</p>
<p>“This is teresha,” he stated, cupping her hands around it. Lana watched as the pistils began to rise upwards. “It responds to heat,” he added, “and is a symbolic flower among my people. It is what we give the drellahna when we say we want to marry them, and the color red can mean something else entirely, but white is meant for devotion.”</p>
<p>“This is. . . Sweet?” She didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her, although it was obvious by the way he put his arm around her and stared at the white flower in her hands. Memories floated through his head.</p>
<p>“I gave one to my first wife the day we decided to marry. We rushed it, of course, but neither of us knew any better.” He turned to her. “I happen to think very highly of you, Lana, and I saw this and thought it was a way to let you know I—“</p>
<p>The omnitool pinged.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0082"><h2>82. Chapter 82</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana looked down and answered the call. Thane sat back, watching her hold her finger up to make him wait.</p>
<p>“Hey, it’s Lana.”</p>
<p>“Miss Shephard,” a voice unlike any she had heard, answered her own. “Good to see you’ve made it to Kahje.” The voice was refined, eloquent, and concise. “We have been waiting for you.”</p>
<p>Lana glanced at Thane, lowering the flower to her lap. “Okay. Well, I’m not sure who you are.”</p>
<p>“We are who you have come to see. If you exit the cab at the next intersection, there will be a blue skypod waiting for you. You and Mr. Nupura may both take it to your meeting place with Illusive Man.”</p>
<p>Her eyes widened. This was it. The next step.</p>
<p>As the cab descended from the air and the door opened, Thane stepping out, a blue skycar waited, as promised. Lana stretched her neck out from the door, saw the tinted windows lower only slightly, and turned her eyes up at Thane. The teresha was left in the cab.</p>
<p>Lana went to the door of the other skypod and stepped back as it swung open. No one was inside.</p>
<p>“Should we go in?”</p>
<p>“Please, enter.” The interior spoke. Lana leaned away.</p>
<p>“It must be a VI controlled unit,” Thane said, checking the seats and finding several cameras he could not remove, though he wouldn’t have tried. He did not want to irritate Cerberus anymore than they must be already to have actively reached out through Lana’s omnitool. He let her slide into the seat next to him.</p>
<p>“Sere Krios, Commander Shephard,” the VI remarked, “refreshments may be found in the inner floor console below your feet. There is syver and fruit for hydration.”</p>
<p>“What is syver?”</p>
<p>“A liquor from Kahje.”</p>
<p>“The embassy has not been notified of your arrival,” the VI went on. “All forms have been handled to counterfeit the contrary. You have permission to be planetside and among the holospheres. Please wait and relax while we drive the fifteen minutes to Mount Vassla.”</p>
<p>Lana fingered the notch between her clavicles. <em>This will be interesting</em>. She raised her eyebrows at Thane, who looked calmly ahead.</p>
<p>“Did you want to finish what you were saying?” she asked him.</p>
<p>Thane politely shook his head. He seemed distant, but to assure her everything was okay, he gave her a brief grin.</p>
<p>The skypod carried them from the curb to the heights of the city, flowing with the air of traffic. It was much similar to following an invisible current, other skypods maintaining a respectable distance to avoid incident. Lana gazed out the window, seeing all there was to the encapsulated city. The buildings were thin bodied and round flared, rising and expanding outwards in Jetson style. She didn’t realize Drell had invented the organic design.</p>
<p>There were tubes, or skyways, connecting the holospheres, and they were miles wide. Skypods of every color flowed in with theirs and traveled over vast blue ocean blurred by speed and rain. The grey overcast ceiling above gave little besides the silver light of its thinner layers.</p>
<p>“Does the sun ever come out here?”</p>
<p>“Only once in a while,” Thane whispered. He looked at her, and she could see there was something he wanted to say, but the moment had been lost in which to say it.</p>
<p>The skypod shifted to another invisible lane, two darker ones zooming passed.</p>
<p>“Those would be Illuminated Primacy pods,” Thane said, pointing to the pair, black and sleek. “Most likely officials.”</p>
<p>“I bet being here brings back a lot of memory.”</p>
<p>“I spent many years flying through these skyways. It’s impossible to forget.” His grin returned. He was a Drell, after all.</p>
<p>Lana pressed her forehead to the window and peered below them, noticing dark shapes forming above the water through the skyway’s sheer material.</p>
<p>“Is the shielding made of glass or some form of plastic?”</p>
<p>“Algae, actually. It is hardened through heating, but expands and contracts well to accommodate the climate changes. Glass would be dangerous, especially with temperature fractures. The Hanar and Drell have use of marvelous organic resources. Much invention has been kept secret here.”</p>
<p>“Cool. And what are those? Boulders?”</p>
<p>He leaned around her shoulder to peer down, letting her know his affection by placing his hand on hers and squeezing.</p>
<p>“The beginnings of Mount Vassla. Enjoy the ride, Commander. The ride is about to become thrilling. I hope you don’t mind roller coasters,” he said with a chuckle.</p>
<p>The skyway dipped and began to curve down, the flow of pods moving fluidly as water down a drain. Lana searched for a seatbelt, feeling pressure pushing her back into the seat by way of speed.</p>
<p>“Please remain relaxed and allow G forces to perform,” instructed the VI.</p>
<p>Lana’s hand snatched onto Thane’s forearm as the skypod careened and dropped vertically.</p>
<p><em>G forces, indeed!</em> She screamed in her head, feeling her stomach shift positions with the rest of her organs as the skypod followed the tunnel down into blackness. The water, blue, rushed up and swallowed them, giving her spectacular view of a calm waterworld with marine creatures she had never seen before. The skyway, now a pipe through the ocean, traveled through openness before what Lana could see was seemingly virtual light aglow for the far distance. A city began to take shape, neon bright with virtual luminescence and millions of shapes similar to Hanar, but they were not pink as the ones she’d seen on land. Sizes and colors, patterns and lights changed as much as the currents. When she was able to move her head again, she stared, fascinated at the tremendous colors and elegant city of light, arches, spheres, and columns. It reminded her some of the buildings in the holospheres, but this city was untouchable save by Hanar skin and fish alone.</p>
<p>“Wow,” Lana said as a deeply resonating song came from a shadow passing above. She looked up to see what on Kahje must constitute for a whale, only it moved with tentacles rather than fins. “That’s. . . How would you ever leave this place?”</p>
<p>“What one should ask is really how should this place ever leave you?” Thane said, admiring her before the lights of the city background. As the song of the aquatic beast faded behind them, the lights suddenly disappeared and they were consumed by inky darkness.</p>
<p>Lana felt Thane’s breath on her cheek, and she instantly responded, turning her nose into his and pressing forward to taste his tongue, enjoying the feel of his fingertips resting on her chin and jaw. A kiss in the dark by which to never forget her first visit into Kahje’s Encompassing.</p>
<p>When a pinpoint of light appeared ahead, the kiss was over. Thane’s taste lingered, and so did the memory of his touch on her jaw and chin. The glow ahead brightened, expanding. Spirals of golden light began to appear at first. As they drew closer, Lana could see that the spirals were actually carved channels in the wall beyond the wall of clear, hardened algae. The light was coming from massive sconces built into the design and gave the entrance to the new section the illusion of falling down a spiraled staircase. Thane’s eyes reflected the fiery halos off his obsidian lenses. He remembered the first time he had entered the Archive, and the awe he had known nowhere else.</p>
<p>
  <em>And into the depths we take you. You will be forged into the weapon of the Hanar. Once inside, there is no way out besides rebirth. To be reborn, you will need to die. Forget your life. Forget who you are. You are no longer a child, but a man. And if you don’t know how to forget, we will teach you.</em>
</p>
<p>A tear he imagined fell from his eye as the memory of his first handlers spoke to him, a frightened young Drell. He reached to wipe it away, but found nothing there.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0083"><h2>83. Chapter 83</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Mount Vassla was a volcano, alive and active many, many years ago,” Thane explained as the tunnels opened to them passing by skypod. “Its lava flowed through these tunnels you see, and cooled to make the tubes.”</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t that mean they’d have to be exposed to air? Oh, water cools too.” Lana bit her lip.</p>
<p>Thane chuckled. “Yes, and that is how the roof of the tunnels sealed. Then layer by layer, the tubes deepened and expanded. At one time, as you can imagine from what we see the Skyway now having become a subterranean channel by which to pass into Vassla, Nausa the Hanar capitol, and the archives below, the lava was vast, and it exited by way of the opening the Skyway has connected to. In recent time,” he added, quirking his lip, “relatively speaking since this was more than likely a hundred thousand years ago, the pyrotubes were carved and treated with the technology you will see serving the lighting and other amenities such as doors and support surfaces. It’s remarkable that the Protheans found this place before the Sybilla Sea rose above it, and that was before the Hanar came to populate the new waters.”</p>
<p>“Have Hanar been around for the same time?”</p>
<p>“One would have to ask a Prothean.”</p>
<p>She leaned back from watching the ribs of the ancient pyrotube speed by, the VI having been silent since its last statements. Nestled into the bucket seat of the pod, she wondered ahead at who she would meet. The passing blur was no more than a pattern now, and having seen one tunnel rib and its similar design among the others, she had seen what interested her.</p>
<p>“What should I expect when I meet with the Illusive Man?”</p>
<p>“I can only say they like conciseness. Results are important to them, and while they are patient, they will expedite things if necessary. I admit, they may not be pleased with how long it has taken us and that we were about to enjoy ourselves before I brought you to this place.”</p>
<p>“Okay. I’ll come up with a good story, most of it being real.” She glanced sidelong at him, rubbing her cheek with her index in thought. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand the flower you gave me, but I think I know what you were trying to say.”</p>
<p>“You do?”</p>
<p>She grinned, eyes creasing in the corners. “Teresha, you said, had two colors. White and red. And you were mentioning your wife. . .”</p>
<p>A realization settled in her gut amid this process she was speaking and thinking aloud in.</p>
<p>“You’re not leaving me, are you?”</p>
<p>“You know I’m not, but I must take the information that Cerberus provides me regarding the final killer of my wife. I need this, Lana. It won’t be long, and you’ll be in good hands.”</p>
<p>“I want to go with you.”</p>
<p>He frowned. “As we entertained it, yes, maybe at the time it sounded alright, but I can’t. I can’t take you. It would not be appropriate.”</p>
<p>The skypod hummed along silently, Thane and Lana looking at each other from across their seats.</p>
<p>“Thane, I—“</p>
<p>“I care about you, Lana. I will return. In the meantime, do as Cerberus asks and do not go to the Flotilla without me. I know that’s on your bucket list,” he laughed, touching her shoulder.</p>
<p>Lana felt dejected. It wasn’t her intention to intrude on Thane’s personal vendetta against the men who had taken his wife away from the living, but other than Will, she hadn’t known what it was like to feel love for someone other than a child. Will had been a bit of Stockholm, in fact, but with Thane, she had found a kindred spirit, and she didn’t want him to leave. <em>I guess I am a sap,</em> she thought, turning her face to the window as the skypod began to descend.</p>
<p>They alighted on the ground of the tunnel, which had been polished and laid down with tiles, at least in front of the doorway from the lot where they parked. Stepping out into the air was nothing like being in a sewer or an underground cavern. Lana was greeted by a pillar of what she guessed was basalt, black and huge, carved from very precise laser technology. She put her hand on it to feel the cold surface and rune-like inscriptions.</p>
<p>“This is pretty,” she admired, running her fingers into each divot and searching upward to see how high the inscriptions went.</p>
<p>“It is the Compact,” Thane said, coming to stand beside her as the door closed behind him and the skypod lifted away. They glanced to see it leave, then looked at each other before turning their focus back to the pillar. “It is inscribed by Drell to remind everyone why we are here. The Compact states we are all one in the universe, and if a symbiosis should be met, we can find ways to adapt to each other and further our relations with the other inhabitants of the kosme.” He lowered his eyes to hers and smiled. “It was meant for Drell and Hanar, but the meaning extends to others. I have found it extends to you.” He took her hand and kissed it. “Let us go. I wonder who we will meet inside.”</p>
<p>Lana followed him, he having released her hand, and the doors into another basalt chamber opened to let them through. Lana once again found herself marveling at the complete, polished look of the room. It was no office, but it was decked in technology, encased in black metals the color of the organic walls. The room was cool as the outside and there was a hum emitted by the tech that Thane walked her in front of. A glistening screen of red particles fell together from a light in the ceiling and Lana stopped, watching it matriculate into a figure.</p>
<p>“Lana, this is the VI for the Archive,” Thane introduced her as a shape took form into a spinning sphere similar to Tali’s own VI drone. “You may call it Advent.”</p>
<p>She ran her fingers through it, feeling nothing. “Advent, huh? Interesting name for a VI.”</p>
<p>“I am Advent. You are Commander Lana Shephard. Your escort is Sere Thane Krios. You have permission to enter the meeting chamber ahead. Please leave all weapons on the console behind you.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Lana glanced down at herself as Thane went to a black drawer that removed itself of its own accord and offered him a place to store his knives, which were cleverly concealed in his coat’s lining. He removed the parts of a gun from his boots and set these inside the hollowed tray, then stepped away as the drawer receded and gleamed with a response of light from his omnitool.</p>
<p>“All set,” he said to her.</p>
<p>The VI rotated, observing them enter a second set of doors that raised upwards into the wall of rock encasing a mechanical shield. Lana now stood in a dark room that felt like a bowl rather than anything square and familiar that she had expected. The floor shifted and they lowered down into yet another tunnel, this one made of metal, before light appeared at the edges and Lana’s eyes shifted downward with the tilt of her head.</p>
<p>The following room was more what she had expected, and covered with metal panels. There were several Drell along with a woman with brown hair and a stark white uniform, who turned as they came down from the ceiling.</p>
<p>“Feron’s here,” Thane said, pleased, “which means one of two things.”</p>
<p>The sound of a child’s laugh brought joy to Lana and she couldn’t wait to step off the platform. Forgetting Thane, she jumped down and landed on both feet, calling David’s name as the woman stepped aside and Feron came forward with a bright ball of energetic green eyes and blond hair reaching for her with a smile only a child could possess.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0084"><h2>84. Chapter 84</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Feron watched Lana as he passed the small Human boy into her arms. She kissed him, recognizing him from Omega and so over pleased with the fact he had delivered her son, as Thane had promised, and to her eyes, David Clarke was in perfect condition. She began to tear up at the feel of his small, hot hands on her face, squeezing and remembering his mother as he smiled and pressed his nose to the scar on her chin.</p><p>“Thank you,” she said to Feron, who was rubbing the side of his crest as he admired her and looked behind Lana to Thane coming calmly off the lift. He nodded to Feron as he came up beside her, and David’s eyes swirled to look over her shoulder at the green and severe countenance.</p><p>“You owe me,” Feron said, not looking at Thane now that he had a much prettier face in front of him, one <em>he</em> had made happy. The Drell could smell her pheromones and all that these entailed, between happiness and possession by another like himself. “But I think seeing them smile is its own reward.” He poked his finger, blue and red, into David’s face and the little boy leaned back to grasp it tight in his fist. He reached for Feron, and Lana smiled uncertainly at the display of trust. Her son was affectionate to she and Will, but not to strangers.</p><p>“How did you. . .”</p><p>“It’s a long story,” Feron said, playing mock battle with the hands trying to grab at him, ducking and sparring playfully, but he gave David control of his palms and beamed his tinted eyes at Lana. “Let’s just say Davey, here, and I got very close. And he’s also developed a thing for my favorite fruit out of Thessia, kian.”</p><p>“I hope it’s not toxic.”</p><p>Feron scoffed, hooding his blue ridged brow scales. “Are you serious?”</p><p>She made a face of annoyance, as if he should know and expect a mother to be concerned about adding new foods into a child’s diet, no less one that had just turned two. Holding onto David, she turned to the woman and saw she had blue eyes like that in the picture frame aboard the Villetta. Thane had already seen it, which was why his reserve was so cool.</p><p><em>Son of a bitch,</em> Lana thought, staring at the woman who had taken the place among Will’s visual belongings, and most likely had spent time in his bed, but that was to be assumed, and unfair of Lana. This would certainly be an interesting introduction.</p><p>“Commander Lana Shephard,” the woman said, her voice accented, and Lana instantly realized she was an Aussie. Could she also be from Earth, or was it just a picked up accent? Maybe even fake. Lana rubbed David’s back as he pawed her hair and peered across her neck at Thane standing close by. Thane was not as friendly towards the child, but he was distracted, and children were not on his mind right now.</p><p>“Are you Cerberus?” Lana asked, glancing at the Drell standing at ease along the desks in the room. They all wore heavy coats, undoubtedly strapped with firearms, which Lana thought a little unfair, considering she and Thane had been told to remove their own weapons. Lana had her biotics, but left all weapons behind as it would be offensive to the Hanar if she set foot on Kahje with the intent to have to defend herself. And Thane had forbidden her before they left the Villetta, his own reasons being encounters like the one with Kalia.</p><p>“I represent this division,” the woman replied, not offering a hand, and both of hers were gloved. “I’m an operative, however, and I carry a message from the head of Cerberus that you and your son are in our care whether you agree or not to work with my employer, which we hope will change to ‘our’ by the end of this meeting. Don’t mind the Drell behind me. They are here to make sure we use the facilities wisely and do not venture beyond this room to places beyond our current level of access. Quoyle, here,” she presented the nearest Drell who was built thickly and wearing a green and red vest over black pants and had an intense scowl on his painted face (the Drell was darker yet more colorful than Feron), “is a cohen for the Illuminated Primacy’s outreach initiative. You may think of him as an officer and our liaison with the IP, if I may. He will need to be present for any tours we take into the Archive.”</p><p>Quoyle extended Lana a small bow of his navy blue head, the rich crimson of his face making him appear more devilish what with the wide black stare. All of the Drell with him, aside from Thane and Feron, appeared to be bruisers and built for discouraging any thought to be breaking rules. “If you decide to come with us, Cerberus that is, Quoyle will be attached to you for certain missions, whereas others will become cooperative in other places besides Kahje.”</p><p>“How many people work for Cerberus?”</p><p>“Our resources are limitless,” the woman said, “and I can’t give you a number, but we are everywhere. From the ground workers to high offices, Cerberus Group has infiltration, which I think benefits you in what you wish to accomplish.”</p><p>“And what do I wish to accomplish, Miss. . .”</p><p>The woman arched a pencil eyebrow, it was so perfectly lined. “Not my name until you sign the dotted line, Lana,” she ushered over a floating pad, which Lana saw her draw through the air by impressive biotics. The gloved fingers clasped around the thin book of tech and she flashed it to her before tucking it against her breasts. “As for what you hope to accomplish,” she continued, “collecting and detaining Saren Arterius and his work would be of equal interest to you <em>and</em> the Illusive Man. We are all fighting to prevent a war from breaking out. Turians assisting the Alliance in Terminus space, the Misrephoth-Maim as I’m sure you’re aware, and among other things, troublesome AI. Your visions of Reapers are also interesting to us, as we have some tools that may help you understand that which you have seen.”</p><p>Lana’s blood began to chill. “I’m not sure what you have in mind, but if it has anything to do with suspendors and beacons, I’m afraid we’re going to have to negotiate that out of your requirements if you wish for me to hop on board.”</p><p>The Drell, Quoyle, gave an imperceptible flick of his gaze to Lana, having been focused on Thane and Feron while the Cerberus operative spoke.</p><p>“We only use what is necessary, Lana,” the woman replied, understanding Lana’s pushback. “The fact, however, remains that you have unresolved issues in your head which need evaluation and understanding. You have received training and aids from Foundations that repress much of what you know, and most likely keep hidden.”</p><p>Thane and Feron looked at Lana.</p><p>“There was more than just training,” Lana said, stroking her son’s head as he rested his cheek against her shoulder. “They used vicers on me in addition to David as persuasion, and suspendors before that. Torture. Much of what’s left has been hidden from the forefront of my mind. It’s how I can dream and not have nightmares. How I can function. There was much facing the Alliance that would have impaired my ability to cooperate with the project.”</p><p>“And you knew about what they would do with David.”</p><p>“I did, at one point, but to ask me about it now I could only repeat what I have been told recently.”</p><p>The woman’s blue eyes dropped to the uniform Lana was wearing.</p><p>“Did you meet with David Anderson at the Corsairs?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>The woman nodded. To Quoyle, she asked if Lana could have some privacy, for the real meeting was about to begin. And back to Lana, she said, “You may keep your son with you. Myself, Thane, Feron, Quoyle and his cohens will take the lift up and you are to remain here with this,” she held up a small metal sphere, brushed steel, with a pin size hole and the flush even outline of a small button. “Don’t worry. It’s only a simplified com relay with a quantum entanglement capability designed for real time meetings. Wait until we are out of the room.” She placed it on the desk beside Quoyle, nodded to Lana, and passed her on the right to reach the lift waiting in the floor. Lana turned to watch them all leave, her eyes lingering on Thane who waited a meaningful second longer.</p><p>“I will be outside.”</p><p>“Okay. Thank you.”</p><p>She meant ‘thank you’ for David, but didn’t move to kiss him, now that she was not overcome with the initial joy of seeing her son. Thane looked at David, her, and smiled.</p><p>With a whisper of a movement, he backed up, turned and joined the four cohens, the woman, and Feron on the lift before it started to ascend.</p><p>“Bye, Feron,” Lana heard David sayin his small voice from beneath her jaw. She abruptly stared at him, then up at the colorful face smiling next to Thane.</p><p>“First words are Momma, Dadda, bubba, diapa, hello, and ‘bye Feron’,” she said to David smiling at her. She held him higher. “I hope he didn’t teach you any bad words. Did you like him?” She went on, talking to him in a monologue, happy to be having such with her son again, and carried him over to the desk with the steel orb. She picked it up and handed this to David. The piece of tech was fairly heavy.</p><p>“Don’t throw. Try pushing that button,” she instructed. David squeezed the sphere in his hands, Lana supporting it with hers, and his palm only had to brush the small button for the pinhole of light to emit a sudden green flash that in effect scanned the room, modeled an artificial replication of the data it read, and reproduced its waiting party on the opposite end of its spectrum. Lana stepped back and leaned against the desk as the shape of a man formed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0085"><h2>85. Chapter 85</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Colorful sand of a weightless nature appeared and filled into a shape from the middle, expanding upwards and down in an hourglass figure, shoulders square and feet apart. It started about three feet off the floor, and rose to as high as six.</p><p>“Lana,” the form said, turning slowly with a voice as smooth as silt, “you finally honor me with your presence.”</p><p>She studied the mature face of antiquitous familiarity. The man chuckled at her expression, amused by her surprise. As the legs and arms continued to oil together, connecting a tailored suit with its vest and pants only slightly darker above stylish shoes, he produced a cigarette out of nowhere and brought it to the other hand, in which was held an old fashioned lighter with the snap clip and wheel she could hear catching as a flame lit. Pomaded hair fell back from a high brow with subtle waves, trimmed behind the ears. A thick set of eyebrows and mustache with a white streak through the right corner down into the beard greeted Lana and David.</p><p>“<em>You’re</em> the Illusive Man? <em>You’re</em> head of this. . . Cerberus group?”</p><p>“Officially and unofficially as of ‘75,” the Illusive Man replied, putting out the flame and pulling on his cigarette until the cherry burned bright red and gold. He walked across the room, even around the desk facing that which she propped against. “Don’t let him play with that,” he warned, pointing to the steel ball in David’s hands, “or he may cut the feed.”</p><p>She sighed with aggravation and took the device from David, setting it on the desk. Her jaw was clenched.</p><p>“My grandson’s turned out to be a beautiful little boy. . . Not a bad choice for the future of Humanity.” Strang Shephard waved his fingers, adorned by one ring on the right hand’s middle digit, at David staring mesmerized by the realistic hologram. The technology used to create his image reminded Lana of Dae’s work at Tarsus Nine, the quality was so perfect. It was as though her father were actually there in the Archive room with them. She could even see his small pores as the older Shephard smiled at David, the brown and white fibers of his beard and mustache lifting. The intelligent face of a sixty-year-old man suddenly looked to her with the same smile.</p><p>“And where have you been all these years,” she grumbled, adjusting David to support his weight in her arms.</p><p>“Watching out for you, believe it or not. I’ve always kept a close eye on you.”</p><p>“I seem to recall a better sense of <em>watching out for</em> when I was a child,” she replied, keeping her anger in check.</p><p>“I couldn’t get close,” he admitted. “So I sent Thane.”</p><p>“To spy on me for you?”</p><p>“Since ‘84,” he said with a nod. Taking a drag, he considered the effect this information was having on her emotionally, and exhaled. “Try and be patient with me, Lana. Being the Illusive Man, I have to maintain a distance for security reasons. As for Thane, he was in need of work, and I could supply him with income. He agreed and followed you through your domestic situation, your transition after Eden Prime. You have my empathies,” he added, but his face betrayed no emotion. Whether this was deliberately forced or not, Lana had no read and remained calm for David’s sake. “Considering your relationship with the Drell,” he continued, looking down at the cigarette, “you should know that Thane tried to back out at one point.”</p><p>“He did?”</p><p>“No species performs as delightfully as Drell do. Quiet, professional, disciplined, possessing memory beyond photographic capability. . . Drell like Thane and the cohens are a sure promise for those wishing to use the species for information gathering. Anyway, I needed him to continue his observations, so I threatened to kill his son.” He cleared his throat after taking another drag, ignoring his daughter’s ireful glare. “He went back to his duty, of course, and I promised to make it up to him by finding the man he was interested in hunting, which was the sole reason he was trying to leave.”</p><p>“Stiv Kay,” she guessed, “one of the men who killed his wife.” She leaned forward, covering David’s ears with her palms. “And did you find the bastard?” she asked coldly. “You owed him that. I hope you kept your word.”</p><p>“I did,” Strang answered, raising his head to see her face, the face with her mother’s eyes. “While you and I are holding this little reunion, Miranda will be showing Thane to what I’ve promised him.”</p>
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<a name="section0086"><h2>86. Chapter 86</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The scent of a woman with the obvious allure of sex made all of the Drell uncomfortable, even Thane. She wasn’t Drell, and so the response among the others was unnatural. Thane sealed his nostrils, trying to think of Lana’s skin against his nose and mouth instead of this agent’s scent who was tied somehow to William Clarke, enough to earn her portrait a spot on his personal desk aboard the Villetta.</p><p>When the lift stopped at the upper level in the round room and she stepped from the platform, the Drell let out a unified breath, quickly adjusting their pants before the woman turned around and set her blue eyes directly on Thane. He was last off the lift as the cohens fanned around her and joined again at the opposite end by the exit to the main tube.</p><p>Lana was below in the chamber with David, meeting with the Illusive Man. Thane was not intent to leave the entrance, and stood with his hands clasped in front of him.</p><p>“Feron,” the woman said, “would you check on our delivery?”</p><p>Feron glanced at Thane. The colorful Drell slipped away, passing between the intimidating cohens standing two by two each side of the exit.</p><p>Thane continued to stand guard of the lift, his eyes locked on the woman’s.</p><p>The walls let no sound in, and no sound out. While Thane waited, he indirectly observed each cohen had their own personal wear. Each a short jacket, full at the sleeves, no doubt storing an omnitool and a few blades. The clothing was professional though casual, and the boots tucked into the pants. They could have been commandos for how they appeared. Thane detected the bulk of a weapon inside each of their coats below the top rib and on either side. He did not recognize them from his days of training in the Archive or anywhere the Illuminated Primacy sent him on Kahje. It was a new generation, younger.</p><p>The Cerberus woman kept his attention. The face was so perfect it was unnatural. Thane decided it must be genetically modified. He had met many Humans and once in a while came across those that had been designed to conform better to what some individuals considered the ideal quality among the species. The woman ahead of him competed with Lana in the sense they were, as he had determined when first sighting the woman in a shattered picture frame, both beautiful. Where Lana achieved superiority to this woman, however, was in her natural sensual grace and attractiveness. Lana was real, whole, far from artificial contrivance, much like his Irikah had been. This Human was something designed from a computer application and grown like a hybridized plant for select genotypical and phenotypical traits. Designer engineering. He wondered if she had a soul, and if that could be engineered as well.</p><p>“The Illusive Man wishes to express his gratitude,” she spoke finally. “Your service contract has had all conditions met. You may retire from his employment with no worries for your son, Sere Kolyat Krios.”</p><p>“Thank you,” he replied stiffly, unfeeling of this actual appreciation for having his son been threatened.</p><p>His eyes dropped to the movement at her waist. She raised her hand and rotated her fist, fingers curled down, in the air between them.</p><p>“Your payment.”</p><p>Thane unclasped both hands, his left lowering to his side while his right opened beneath her fingers. She placed a pile of ten gold coins stacked one atop the other into his waiting palm.</p><p>Thane felt the weight of the gold. It was heavy.</p><p>When her hand moved away, he glanced down at the minted coins and listened to these slide over each other as they spread on his big stage of a palm.</p><p>“Bullion,” the woman explained. “Bring it to any bank. They will credit you its worth, no questions asked.”</p><p>“This is the full amount?” he asked, puzzled by the ten coins.</p><p>She leaned slightly forward. “The worth of each gold coin is two hundred thousand credits.”</p><p>Quoyle and the cohen, who had been listening, all inhaled quietly through their noses.</p><p>“There are ten,” she reiterated, “I think you can do the math.”</p><p>Thane pocketed the coins inside his coat liner and nodded.</p><p>“What of the last term? The one the Illusive Man promised to make up to me with?”</p><p>She smiled, the perfect little curve of her nose lifting as she turned to the doors that suddenly opened as if on cue from the pyrotube.</p><p>“It’s here,” Feron announced to the woman. He looked at Thane. <em>“He’s here.”</em> The look in his stare was disturbing.</p><p>Miranda frowned at the Drell’s expression, and turned back to Thane. Her smile returned. “The Illusive Man felt there was no better Drell to compel the commander. He apologizes for what he had to enforce in order to keep you on contract. He sends his regards and has ordered the personal delivery of the one known as Stiv Kay.”</p><p>Thane stopped breathing.</p><p>“You will find him waiting in the chambers of the Hanar judiciary. You will have your own chamber in which you may formally acquaint with him. Please know that we have left him unharmed and he is without any weapons. Perhaps short of a few marbles,” she added out of the corner of her mouth, which tightened back into the white smile. She could see something coiling in the eyes of the Drell standing before her. “If the Illusive Man should ever wish to hire your services again, and he may,” she added with an eyebrow arch, “it would be preferable for you to hold him and his word in esteem.”</p><p>“You were only to provide coordinates,” Thane roughly remarked, his voice strained. “This would be double the gesture.”</p><p>“The Illusive Man is very much aware,” she replied, voice soft as silk in that tint of a Human accent. “His wish is that all injury to the professional relationship between you and him, shall be forgiven.”</p><p>“Forgiven,” he echoed, dry. “Now show me to Stiv.”</p><p>The woman stepped aside and gestured at the doors between the cohen, Feron awaiting.</p><p>“Feron,” she called, “please take Sere Krios to the Jehush chambers to greet his consolation gift.”</p><p>Thane moved forward, but something in his mind begged him stop. He turned his face towards the lift, remembering Lana and David. Miranda’s voice was heard moving through the room away from him.</p><p>“The commander and her son will be detained for an hour at least, or as long as it takes,” she added, sitting down on a chair matching the surroundings and placing the tablet in her lap. She stood out, all white in uniform, heel, glove, belt, and buckle. “There is plenty of time to attend to your personal business, Sere Krios. You need not worry about the commander, or David.” She padded this statement with a sincere smile. “They will be here when you return, and I will apologize for your absence if Lana comes out sooner with David than anticipated.”</p><p>He didn’t know what to say. Wetting the inside of his mouth with his tongue, he fought through the heat building in his temples and uttered the sound of a ‘thank you’. Miranda nodded then looked at the exit, Thane’s head turning to follow, to see Feron waiting there still.</p><p>One step forward. Another. Thane pushed through the heels of his boots and joined Feron at the doors. As these slid apart and they stepped outside, two cohen detached from each of the others to go with Feron and Thane.</p><p>Quoyle’s gaze turned to Miranda’s, and he gave her a subtle nod.</p><p>With a delicate sigh, Miranda lifted her tablet and set to work, reviewing the Illusive Man’s incoming messages while he met with his daughter and grandson.</p>
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<a name="section0087"><h2>87. Chapter 87</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I can’t believe you threatened to kill his son,” Lana said, coarsely berating her father. “You don’t have substitutes to spy on me? What good is this Cerberus organization if it’s lacking manpower? And didn’t that woman, who I’ll talk to you about later,” she jabbed her finger at the holo, “say your resources were ‘<em>limitless</em>’? That you had people ‘<em>laying the groundwork and at the heights of galactic civilization’</em>?”</p><p>Strang removed the cigarette from his mouth. “Are you done?” </p><p>“For now,” she huffed, and soothed herself by fussing with David’s hair.</p><p>“Not everyone can be the Star of Terra, heroine with the golden heart, Lana. That’s what people like you are for. The rest of us must be willing to do what it takes to make the world continue to turn. And I think you know what I mean by that.” He gave her a hard look.</p><p>“The father I knew growing up taught me to believe in good and to do no evil. Only in defense was I to use force, or to stand up for myself or others, and preferably first with words. You would have killed someone who threatened me, even with my biotics under control.” She glanced wearily at him, ensconcing David’s little hand in hers much larger. “You’ve changed.”</p><p>“What about Torfan?” he asked acidly. “Aren’t you also earned the name ‘Butcher’?”</p><p>“That was different,” she grit out, closing her eyes and opening these to deliberately squeeze the visuals of mass graves away. “How could you stand by and let the Alliance do what they did to me?” she demanded, changing the subject back to him.</p><p>“I have control over many things, Lana,” Strang said, looking disheartened by the direct hit with her question that he knew was coming, “but in order to act, I must pull many strings. Each must be done in order,” he chopped his small finger into the opposite palm, “carefully, with timing. The web will collapse if I just thrust my hand through to pull you out, even when I know what’s coming. . . And sometimes,” his eyes earnest, “some strings must be left in place to provide an anchor.”</p><p>“Was I such a string?” she cast at him, digging for culpability. “Did you use me too?”</p><p>“I use everyone, Lana,” he said, angrily brandishing the cigarette. “It’s nothing personal.”</p><p>“But I’m your <em>daughter</em>,” she hissed.</p><p>“You are a <em>soldier</em>,” he spoke ominously, echoing words she had heard from Will, “and I never taught you to turn your back on service to your own kind. Which, by the way, I’ll have some words now about your relationship with that Drell you’ve become so attached to.”</p><p>“Leave him out of this,” she warned, “you wanted me brought to you and Thane saw to it.”</p><p>“He’s also managed to sleep with you. A widowed Drell with a sordid past. More importantly, non-Human.”</p><p>“You want to talk about sleeping with people, what’s the deal with that woman up there and Will, hmm? We only found a shrine to her on board the Villetta!”</p><p>“Really?” He looked genuinely caught off guard by this bit of news. Strang backed up, rubbing the side of his jaw. “A shrine?”</p><p>“Well, not a shrine,” Lana admitted, “but her photo was on his desk. In a picture frame. That shows effort. Thought.”</p><p>“That’s a statement there,” he said sardonically, furrowing the middle of his brow at her.</p><p>They glared accusingly at each other in silence.</p><p>“Miranda Lawson is one of my top operatives,” he said on the next exhale. “While Thane was watching you, Miranda was on Clarke.”</p><p>“I bet,” she muttered.</p><p>He narrowed his eyes. “What does it matter? Will and you never cared about each other. He was using you for Project Foundation. For David,” he opened his hands towards the child, then took a drag off his cigarette which was shortening by his irate consumption. “Any feelings would have been aroused by pity. He would kill you now, especially for removing David from Arcturus. No more playing around, Lana. The next time Will sees you, he’ll have a gun lined up with you in its sights. No more cat and mouse. No more conflicted nostalgic feelings. You’re a <em>dead</em> woman to him. Used for what was necessary and now a loose end to be tied up.”</p>
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<a name="section0088"><h2>88. Chapter 88</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Thane, you don’t have to do this.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But I must.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Don’t choose for me. Choose for yourself.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I have.</em>
</p>
<p><em>“I love you, mitali. . . I know where your heart is.”</em> He held her in his arms, thumbing the soft broad scale of her patak.</p>
<p>
  <em>I know.</em>
</p>
<p>Thane walked through the memories with Irikah, suddenly appearing in the eye of his mind. Ahead of him stalked Feron, who led he with the Drell cohen flanking either side. They stepped out over the tiles, leaving the chamber behind and heading for what Thane could see was an official pod of the Illuminated Primacy.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Arashu would forbid you taking another life, Thane.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Amonkira rewards me.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“What if I told you I’d never forgive you?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Indulge me, Irikah. This is to feed my soul.</em>
</p>
<p>The doors of the skypod all closed with heavy clicks. The engines hummed to life, Feron guiding the vessel upwards to join the flow of traffic at the height of the tube.</p>
<p>“Cerberus dropped him off with cohens,” Feron said, glancing at his colleague. “They were to bring him some place else in the Archive, but Quoyle’s already made arrangements at the Jehush chambers.”</p>
<p>Thane made a hum of noise in his throat, one of acknowledgement.</p>
<p>“Hopefully the overtons don’t catch on.”</p>
<p>“They’ll move him through the lower archives,” one of the cohens in the back seats said. He had a strip down the side of his tebris, bronze and red. “Should be no problem.”</p>
<p>Thane stared blankly ahead, conversing with Irikah, whose cool, gold scales gleamed just out of his reach.</p>
<p><em>“What will you tell Kolyat? Should he know?” </em>In the boudiceau of his cottus, Irikah walked back and forth with a small bundle in her arms, singing through her tebris at the owner of tiny fingers extending for the crimson folds.</p>
<p>
  <em>Should I? He was only three.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“It could make him wonder about you. . . Try to be you.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>No, I will never let that happen.</em>
</p>
<p>He blinked off his vacuous stare, bringing himself to listen to Feron.</p>
<p>“The Illuminated Primacy has offered support in permitting you to do this. There were a few hurdles. It was decided the cohen would be best for the task. Important names don’t know about what’s going to happen, so you’ll be clear to inflict your retribution,” Feron said darkly. His colorful fingers tinkered with the controls on the skypod’s dash. He altered the path to flow around a row of tandem pods moving shy of the speed limit.</p>
<p>“Good,” was Thane’s terse reply.</p>
<p>The traffic bent with the course of the vast tunnel. More colossal pillars formed either side. One could be seen rising from the floor in the middle, parting the air traffic around its girth.</p>
<p>“You will have access to all of the tools the overtons have at their disposal.”</p>
<p><em>“Mircea, Thane.” </em>Irikah turned her face to him, alive and full of warmth, as he moved to touch the cloth of the mannaan hanging from her shoulder.</p>
<p><em>For what they did to you? Never. </em>He gently tugged the sleeve back into its place.</p>
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<a name="section0089"><h2>89. Chapter 89</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Gosh, you are just a wealth of encouragement and positivity,” she snapped to spite his last statements. “You think I don’t realize Will’s trying to kill me? Do you know I’ve been running from him since the Citadel, when he actually sent a kill squad to take down me <em>and</em> Thane? I know what he thinks of me! How he thinks. . . And I intend to end him first. He’s threatened my crew, me, the Drell I love—“</p><p>“Love? Seriously? You just met Thane!”</p><p>“Don’t disparage me. Maybe it’s too early for that word and granted I’m naïve about it, but I’ve seen how he is with Graine and his own son.”</p><p>“Who is Graine?”</p><p>Lana glanced at David, who was still smiling in light of she and her father’s tense discussion.</p><p>“A Vorcha child I found on Omega.”</p><p>The cigarette popped out of Strang’s mouth. He held it to the side. “Would you listen to yourself?”</p><p>“Look, Thane’s in it with me. You want me to continue playing along as your anchor string or whatever you want to call it, you accept the fact of him and me and whoever else I have in my crew.”</p><p>“Are you sleeping with all of them?” he demanded, incensed.</p><p>“No! Oh God, I can’t believe you think I’m sleeping with everyone.”</p><p>Strang pressed his index and thumb to the edges of his eyebrows, the cigarette having been passed to hold between his middle and ring fingers.</p><p>“I know you have a second Drell, who happens to be Thane’s son, a Turian, and some Quarian. Who <em>else</em> constitutes this <em>crew</em> of yours?”</p><p>“I have a second Quarian, a probable Krogan, and Will’s former pilot, a guy named Joker,” she said, ticking off her fingers. David pushed her hand down. “And the Vorcha baby.”</p><p>“I take it at least the pilot’s Human,” he said, not removing his hand from his brow. “And the sound of his name doesn’t inspire confidence.”</p><p>“Hey,” she leaned forward with a stern jaw, “we been doing alright for being <em>diverse</em>. Anyway, you use Drell, and Cerberus claims, at least I hear from Garrus, to be pro-Humanity.”</p><p>“I employ contractors from time to time outside the species, but I have no one on standard payroll who is non-Human.”</p><p>“Well, you’re missing out,” Lana said in defense of her crew. “Maybe you should open your eyes a little more.”</p>
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<a name="section0090"><h2>90. Chapter 90</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Thane,” Feron called for his attention, “we’ve arrived.”</p><p>The pod lowered to a new lot before curving stairs set in relief from the left wall of the tunnel. These led to a significant entrance carved from the stone, deep friezes of Protheans posed into eternal record on the pediments and columns, climbing vertically a sheer three hundred feet from the floor. At one point, it was believed to have been used as a treasury and repurposed for the Hanar’s arm of justice and incapacitation of criminals. Imposing on visitors to the Jehush chambers were two large four-legged creatures driving boorish, flat skulled heads into the sides of the tall rectangular doorway at the top of one hundred thirty-five steps.</p><p>Four pairs of black boots set upon the decorative tiles beneath the skypod, Thane, Feron, and both cohens stepping away, simultaneously closing their doors. Thane took the lead, Feron and a cohen behind him. The second cohen took up the rear to form a diamond that moved onto the staircase.</p><p>A serious looking crowd was noticed coming through the foreboding entrance. Drell dressed in expensive vestein suits with kajal pants, guns exposed in the holsters strapped to their thighs, emerged and spread to the sides of the stairs, heading towards the lot with scrutinizing expressions and thick black lenses. A strange characteristic shared among them were long arms with fingers that could easily coil around the guns above their knees.</p><p>“Proinnseas results,” Feron warned, his gaze following one of the gangly armed Drell. He faced forward as the cohen beside him spoke.</p><p>“Hitomi. Three of them. That means the Altha or the Abban’s here.”</p><p>Thane’s pulse quickened at the sight of the first eight lobed bell of red, white, and creamy black bands rising from the bottom of the open gateway, followed on either side and partly set back by two more.</p><p>The domes of the specialized Hanar were five feet across. Unlike the typical Hanar permitted to travel from Kahje and immerse with the rest of galactic life, the Hitomi had an additional six thin tentacles at their underbelly, in addition to the six thick tentacles on the periphery of the large encapsulated domes of flesh. It was an elite guard, reserved for the protection of Hanar dignitaries, high priests, and priestesses. The Hitomi floated out and paused at the top of the stairs, apparently waiting. Thane considered the problem facing them and as protocol dictated, he made to step aside and open the stairway to the Hitomi and their escort, but before he could do this, a smaller Hanar came to be.This one passed between the Hitomi and bobbed down the stairs effortlessly, aided by the gravity defying booster embedded inside the base of her bell.</p><p>“The Altha,” Thane whispered for those behind him to hear.</p><p>The Altha was a translucent Hanar with pinstripes circumventing her bell and tentacles that seemed to coil and uncoil as she moved swiftly for Thane’s group.</p><p>(Sere Krios.)</p><p>She greeted him in a burst of high frequency waves, intense silver light read easily with the help of Thane’s Hanar lenses. He recognized the pattern of bioluminescent code that was his name in her language.</p><p>Thane, Feron, and the cohens immediately touched their left shoulders and brow scales with right hands in honor of the high priestess as she slowed to meet him, her entourage of Hitomi spreading apart to wait a polite distance away.</p><p>“Altha, it is an honor to be recognized by this one,” Thane said, bowing his head low with Feron and the others.</p><p>She rippled rapidly, bands of silver rushing through the cells of her diaphanous tissue.</p><p>(Why is this one here? He that no longer serves the Illuminated. What has brought him back, I implore?)</p><p>“A follow up inquiry related to the investigation of Clyde Trumhall’s betrayal, Altha,” Thane smoothly lied. He did not want to deceive the Altha, and knew how serious his transgression would be treated, but he knew if she realized the true reason he was there, she would intervene.</p><p>(I have not been made aware of any updates to the investigation since Overton Kalia’s last report. And I did just passhim on the way out.)</p><p><em>Shit</em>, Feron thought, discretely snatching a glance through the gateway to see if Kalia was in plain sight of them.</p><p>He wasn’t. Yet.</p><p>“The inquiry was made months ago, but I could not reply due to a freelance assignment, Altha.” Thane continued to smooth out the lie. “I have just become available again and decided to come directly to the chambers.”</p><p>(Then I am keeping this one from honoring his call.)</p><p>She hovered uncertainly. Thane raised his chin, inviting her to go on.</p><p>(It is unfortunate what Trumhall did to all of his brethren and sisters. We all pray for those who have suffered from his recklessness. This one as well, Sere Krios.)</p><p>He tilted his brow out of respect. “This one humbles me, Altha. My gratitude for her unexpected blessing.”</p><p>She turned a few degrees in the air from him, but stopped and swirled back.</p><p>(Sere Krios would be welcome if he chose to rejoin the Protectorate. This one’s decision to leave troubled the worthy Abban, but I support the reason behind the decision. . . And I am sorry about Irikah.)</p><p>“My deepest gratitude, Altha,” Thane’s voice rasped, his tebris flushing with the blood of benign embarrassment at having been addressed over such personal honors and pains in front of so many strangers aside from the Altha and Feron.</p><p>Her tentacles pulsed softly.</p><p>(Irikah was committed to the preservation of life. Her work will not be forgotten, and neither will she be.)</p><p>Thane raised his crests and gazed up into the natural beauty of the lively bell above the six long tentacles hovering above him. The Altha floated towards him, her silver light on his eyes brilliant as she imparted a farewell ripple, and briskly turned away to continue down the staircase. The Hitomi followed close behind and caught up with the spritely Hanar turning to float left down the tunnel, the proinnseas Drell slinking around them, keeping pace with the aerial Hanar.</p><p>Feron and the cohens exhaled as they looked to Thane.</p><p>“I presume she was not part of the consulted parties regarding my purpose here. Or Stiv’s,” he murmured under his breath to Feron as they commenced the steps and gained the top landing.</p><p>“As much as I love the new Altha,” Feron mumbled, gazing over the heads of Drell and around the floating bells of Hanar for more surprises, “she would have forbidden Stiv’s handling by you and ordered due process. Granted he’d be put away for life, even with an insanity plea.”</p><p>The interior of the room beyond the entrance held the same austerity of the outside, but presented as well with the technology the Protheans left behind, harnessed by Hanar and Drell. Lifts with obsidian black doors opened and closed with calls by Drell and Hanar on the right of the entry hall. A stairwell with the same texture curved from the left side of the room over its middle, providing a balcony view by which to attend proceedings displayed through modern windows along the courts found farther along the upper level. Before the arching stairs was a massive desk, behind which three Drell were working to respond to officials coming by, dropping off forms. There they maintained the scheduling and security of the Jehush chambers, and answered calls and messages on three dimensional kella displays.</p><p>As Thane and Feron walked through the middle of this lobby, both cohen nodded to the Drell at the desk, who recognized their faces, permanently etched into the administrators’ memories.</p><p>“Take the first lift you can,” Feron murmured. “If we run into any problems, go ahead of us and we’ll find you later. Stiv’s on level two, room thirty-nine. Where we are now is level eighteen, for your reference. You’ll see two more cohen guarding his door. Tell them who you are, they’ll let you in.”</p><p>“Thank you, Feron.” Thane’s voice was barely above a whisper.</p><p>Feron spared a glance at the legendary assassin. “You good?”</p><p>Thane made no reply. He was finding himself vexed by the disquieting awkwardness of not only being inundated with argumentative memories of the bits of conversations he had held with Irikah while alive and trying to turn him from his career as a hitman. He was fighting memories of the Altha’s preachings and those before her, of blessing those committed to a path of life, mircea, and compassion. The warning of the Abban, Thane’s superior sponsor among the Hanar priests, condemning him with words of an ill fate waiting for one who chose not to follow the path that had guided Thane for years—death. Adding to the confounding ‘wisdom’ of these memories was the gnawing sense that Stiv Kay’s life would not grant him the closure he needed. For himself or his son.</p><p>
  <em>It won’t bring her back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, Thane. . . It won’t.”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0091"><h2>91. Chapter 91</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I take it you intend to work for me.”</p><p>Strang stared at her expectantly, tapping his cigarette out. Both mother and father had shared their genetics over the woman looking back, but where Lana held the most in common with her father was in the jaw. Fierce and determined. His eyes noted the scar on her chin, and Strang couldn’t help but wonder why she still kept it when at any point she could have used medigel to correct it.</p><p>“I want to kill a Turian,” she said, rolling her back and shoulder muscles together, nerve by nerve sending relaxing sensations through her body. “Thane told me Cerberus would help with that.”</p><p>“Do you even know what Cerberus is, Lana? Oh, daughter of mine.”</p><p>“So long as it’s nothing to do with Project Foundation, I don’t really care if it helps me nail Saren.”</p><p>“Well, let me tell you first a little about my company. We were once part of the Alliance. Anti-Council espionage.”</p><p>“Not like the Corsairs?” she asked, hugging David as he laid his head against her shoulder and started to quiet into sleep.</p><p>Strang gave her a derisive smile. “Nowhere near as clumsy,” he scoffed, flicking away his cigarette. It disappeared from the hologram. “We were like Thane. There and not. An invested secret used for one thing: disruption and recourse when necessary.”</p><p>“You sound like insurgents.”</p><p>“Perhaps we had that use too. What made us leave the Alliance was learning that the efforts of a few were misaligning the purpose of the organization. Something systemic was proliferating. The Corsairs were under investigation by William Clarke himself. He pulled up enough dirt to succeed.”</p><p>“But the Corsairs were set into existence by the Alliance,” Lana said, rocking David gently side to side.</p><p>“Correct. Cerberus was always independent, but in time, if things didn’t disappear, I knew they would come for us.”</p><p>“So in ‘75,” she led him.</p><p>Strang nodded. “Yes. I took Cerberus rogue. It was simple, really. Our strength was in unified yet separate cells. I have always been in charge of those I hire. The selection process, the criteria. . . It all comes down to me. To lead an army, Lana, you select each and every captain, every leader you entrust your former men and women to, based on their weakness. Everyone’s always trying to cover it up, but if you can find it and strengthen it, these men and women make leaders. Single cell operatives,” he emphasized each word with his finger.</p><p>“How big is Cerberus?”</p><p>“Too big,” he replied, revealing a second cigarette and snapping open his lighter. After a few puffs and the crackle of paper, he sliced the flame, sealing the lighter and hiding it in his pants pocket. With a flourish of his hand, the cherry brightened. “It needs a leader, someone to help guide the troops. I command as much as a following as you do, Lana. Believe it or not. The only difference is that my face doesn’t sit above an Alliance Hall of Fame plaque with the Star of Terra sealed into it. When I ask my men and women to perform, however, they do it. No questions asked.”</p><p>“Every one of them?” She presented a skeptical eyebrow. David was asleep, snoozing into his mother’s neck. She could feel the soft puffs of his breath on her skin. “Surely there have to be some who dig their heels or ask questions once in a while.”</p><p>“And what do I do with them, you shall ask me, hmm?” he clasped his hand with the cigarette over his opposite wrist down below his belt and studied her. The smoke drifted up the front of his suit in a tendril. “Do I seem a reasonable man, Lana? How, when you were a child, did you find me unlikable?”</p><p>“Never,” she stated, and she was honest. “You were always a good father to me. You pushed me, but I always remember there was love, not anger, or frustration if at first I screwed up.”</p><p>“That is how I deal with my men and women. As I said, we search for weakness, correct it, build on it when it is ready.”</p><p>“What was my weakness?” she suddenly asked. “You wouldn’t have had Thane bring me here if I wasn’t without a weakness relatable to the rest of your so-called army.”</p><p>Strang shook his head apologetically, the corners of his cheeks pushing upwards in a sad smile.</p><p>“Your weakness, Lana, was that you loved the Alliance too much, far too much, to be of any help to me.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0092"><h2>92. Chapter 92</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey! Hold up there!”</p><p>A green and blue diamond patterned head pushed through a group of Drell, waving his hand at Thane, who didn’t bother to meet the request or look in the voice’s direction. The doors to the first lift were open and Thane made for it with his escort shifting to his left to provide interference.</p><p>Feron and the cohen suddenly stopped and fanned around the lift, effectively blocking any view of Thane’s dark form as he disappeared among the black doors, which closed perfectly in time behind him.</p><p>Kalia picked up his feet and ran, hoping to intercept the departing platform.</p><p>Timing the overton’s rushed arrival, Feron rotated a thick shoulder left, hard, knocking the Drell down.</p><p>“Whoa ho!” Feron’s hands snatched Kalia by the cloth of his coat’s shoulders and wrenched him upwards with surprising strength. “Steady there!”</p><p>He then tripped the overton with a swipe of his foot so the Drell fell back to the floor.</p><p>“Kalia! You crazy Drell! Watch the polish on these stones!” he said unhelpfully as he controlled Kalia up and tripped him again.</p><p>Kalia growled. “Feron, you prick! Let me go.”</p><p>“What, you losing your feet <em>and</em> your sense of humor?”</p><p>He wrested his coat out of Feron’s grip and glared at the jovial Drell. The two cohen nonchalantly turned to observe them, as if noticing Kalia and Feron for the first time. Kalia gestured at the lift they were blocking with their bulks.</p><p>“Was that Thane Krios I just saw?”</p><p>“Ah, what?” Feron made an incredulous glance at the doors. “You been using vicers on yourself? Why would Thane Krios ever set foot in here?”</p><p>“I saw him in the city,” Kalia replied, indignant, and moved to the second lift where he scanned his cuff and then craned his neck around to see over their heads. The level indicator above the first lift was the Prothean symbol for ‘one’. “Had a word with him, too. Said he was sight seeing with some Human named Lana Shephard. The very idea was laughable.”</p><p>“Really?” Feron asked, mocking him with his eyes. “You take a picture?”</p><p>“I don’t need to,” he said, tapping a green diamond on his temple scale. “I know what I saw. And I’m pretty damn sure he just took that lift.”</p><p>“I don’t know, Kalia,” Feron scratched his tebris and glanced at the light above the second lift, “I was kind of looking right at it before you decided to fall on me.”</p><p>“I didn’t fall. You backed into me.”</p><p>Feron feigned offense. “<em>Moi</em>? As I recall,” he said, tapping the orange scale on his own temple opposite Kalia’s, “<em>you</em> were running because you <em>imagined</em> you saw something you <em>wanted to</em>, and I just helped you by preventing your skull from meeting that floor. <em>You</em> should be thanking <em>me</em>. . . Not being so impolite.”</p><p>“Screw yourself, Feron,” Kalia retorted, shrugging Feron’s grip wrinkles out of his coat and striding into the lift as the doors opened.</p><p>Quick, as Kalia had his back to him, Feron reached around the metal mold of the lift’s frame and flattened his palm against all the buttons for the lift’s fifty plus levels. He leaned back out just as the doors closed, Kalia turning around to key in his destination for level one.</p><p>Feron looked to the others as the doors sealed Kalia from view. “Asshole.” He bumped fists with the nearest cohen and snickered.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0093"><h2>93. Chapter 93</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The expression that bloomed on her face made Strang’s holo step forward. The cigarette disappeared as he leaned over to put it away somewhere out of the hologram and reach for her as she stepped around the desk, backing away from his image.</p><p>“I had to let you learn the hard way, Lana. I, too, was once an idealist like you. A dreamer. I believed in the right and pure. Good would always conquer over evil. Everything vile and dark needed light to be shined upon it, and the Systems Alliance was that light. . . But through my eyes at Cerberus, I saw the ugliness of secrets that I was entrusted to protect. It wounded me. Tarnished my image of what the Systems Alliance was to represent. It broke me, nearly as it did you.”</p><p>Lana covered her mouth. She had to turn from her father. She wouldn’t let him see her cry.</p><p>“You let them destroy me to prove a point.”</p><p>Strang moved closer to her, watching the back and shoulders quiver with. . . Who knew? Pain? Rage? Sorrow?</p><p>“You were so smitten with the Alliance, Lana. The Systems meant everything to you. There was not a mission you would back down on. Innocent was what you were, and so very powerful. . . You were a dream. . . Everything they could want in a soldier. . . And you <em>believed</em> they would do anything for you.”</p><p>“You let them break me.”</p><p>“I couldn’t do it myself, Lana. Anytime I tried to point out the flaws to you, you willfully denied the Alliance could ever do any wrong. Then when the Blitz happened, there was no way to reach through to you. The Alliance praised you to heights only war legends knew. They turned you into the poster child of the armed forces. . . And they were right to,” he said, garnering a genuine smile. “You made even me proud. . . But I’m afraid by that point, you were too far gone in the glory to listen when I tried to warn you about the pending invasion of Torfan.”</p><p>“They said they were murderers.”</p><p>“They gave you orders to kill expatriates fighting the Hegemony, denouncing their archaic ways of slavery. You were sent not to take prisoners, but to rout and destroy, were you not? They fanned it off the flames of the Skyllian Blitz, told you what they needed you to know to get the job done, Lana. As the real story goes. . . You and your men hunted innocent civilians living in tunnels, trying to defy the Hegemony.”</p><p>“The Alliance must have been deceived.”</p><p>“Listen to yourself, Lana! The Alliance needed peace with the Hegemony. The results of the Blitz were leading to war. The Hegemony agreed to back down their secretly backed raids if the Alliance agreed to kill off the troublemakers inconveniencing them from Torfan. Your defense of the Blitz gave the Batarians the idea. You could hold off a raid the size of what attacked Elysium, you could certainly flush out and terminate rebels.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“It pains me to tell you, Lana, but I know what happened. I know why. Cerberus was there the entire time, listening, watching, recording. Peace by blood.”</p><p>“I don’t believe you.”</p><p>“Did you see any women or children? Did you, Lana? You didn’t, and I’ll tell you why. Because I do have a heart and because we knew early on. Cerberus warned the colonists to flee because of what was to come. . . But the men chose to stay and defend their homes while they sent the weak and defenseless away. If you go back to Torfan, you will find the remnants of those who were slaughtered. There will be graves, and there will be elderly, young men and women who were children when it happened, and many, many widowed mothers.”</p><p>“It was all a lie?”</p><p>“The Alliance wanted peace. The Hegemony wanted to send a message to the rebels. They used you to do it, Lana. You were just as much a tool as Stiv Kay was to the Batarians who went after Thane’s family.”</p><p>And it hit her like a wall.</p><p>The words her father said stabbed through her heart, into the wound where the scar had only begun to heal overwhat had been festering, pus and bile, for so long. The destruction of a faith in which she believed, all she had fought for.</p><p>Truth.</p><p>Righteousness.</p><p>The Systems Alliance. </p><p>There was no bigger betrayal than that of one’s own faith. . . For what did she believe in when the house that she built with that faith came burning down around her? When the wolves came, savaged her, used her for what she would have provided them willingly. . . But they didn’t honor her sacrifice with love and adulation, reward and praise. They took it, raped it out of her, and left her to face the horrible truth while she laid bereft of hope and dragging herself to a place to heal.</p><p>To Thane. . . What would he think of her, if she were like Stiv Kay? Had Thane murdered innocents? She had not been kind in her treatment of those found hidden away in Torfan. . .</p><p>Lana opened her mouth, and a shuddering breath expelled. It was at this signal that Strang stepped towards her and placed his hands over her holo’s shoulders in his own office at Cerberus.</p><p>His voice soothed her as she wept, still not able to look at him. “From Hell we are forged, child, into warriors of wrath. You have suffered at great expense, and it has broken my heart to watch them break you, and to finally have to play my role in leveling the walls. . . But as I knew you would, you survived and brought your broken spirit here to be rebuilt by no other than me. . . And look.”</p><p>He spread his fingers over David’s sleeping form. Strang’s holo gazed down at David.</p><p>“Something good came of it all, Lana. I want you to know that I have had trouble accepting what has had to happen, but in the end, something good came of it all, as awful as it may sound.”</p><p>She lowered her eyes to David and pressed her head against his. Dark streaks formed where her tears struck and dampened his hair.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0094"><h2>94. Chapter 94</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Graine scratched at the glass in the cockpit. “Lana,” she gurgled as she peered over the lip of the control board staring into the streaking rain. Kolyat pulled her down into his lap, his left leg crossed in a figure four to support the Vorcha in the crook of his hip while on his knee he balanced a container of pasta. Graine had taken a liking to the sweet smelling, over salted food with its thick oily sauce. He coated this on a spoon and fed it to Graine, who was distracted enough to need more prompting.</p>
<p>“You really miss her, don’t you,” he mumbled at her, glancing up at the rain and back down to the can as it wobbled. He steadied it with the hand holding the spoon, then returned the paste and its white ribbons to Graine’s nose, which wrinkled when he accidentally dabbed a goopy dot on her.</p>
<p>“Oops,” he said, chuckling and lifting a napkin off Joker’s arm rest.</p>
<p>“They’ve been gone an hour. No check in.” Garrus rapped his talons on the metal cover attached to a joint in the wall.</p>
<p>“Would be nice if we could go out and check the sights,” Joker sighed, threading his fingers behind the cap on his skull. “I’d even chance getting soaked in this rain to go hit up a bar.”</p>
<p>“You’d get knocked off the syver here,” Kolyat grinned mischievously. “Access to venom and other hallucinogens is pretty much the main reason people try to take trips out to Kahje. That, or they pay the export tax. It’s a good market if you’re a seller.”</p>
<p>“I don’t seem to remember there being any rule set down by the commander not to leave the ship.”</p>
<p>“Just not to leave the kid.”</p>
<p>Garrus, Kolyat, and Joker looked at each other, then down at Graine who chirruped and licked her nose.</p>
<p>“Oh, no you don’t,” Tali said, coming up the ramp with Kenn. “Lana expects us to stay on the Villetta, regardless if she speaks it out loud. You know she’ll be very mad if you all go off ship into those holospheres.”</p>
<p>“Wrex did,” Kenn pointed out.</p>
<p>Tali glared at him through her visor.</p>
<p>“Wrex is a Krogan bounty hunter who can knock heads,” Joker laughed. “I think the commander knows how to pick her battles.”</p>
<p>Graine crawled up on Kolyat’s clothes and turned to spring back onto the control board, digging her small stunted claws at the glass and scratching out the name of Lana through her developing vocals.</p>
<p>“Hey, maybe she wants some music,” Joker said, playing with the dials and pulling up some poppy rhythm to liven up the cockpit and take their minds off the dismal rain. Kolyat clapped his teal and black hands together to attract Graine’s attention. When she didn’t come down, he sat back, slapping his hands to rest on his thighs, gazing out above her head.</p>
<p>“Should we be worried?” he asked.</p>
<p>Garrus huffed through his nostrils. Both mandibles opened and closed, full function of the left injured joint fully regained.</p>
<p>“I’d give them the three hours left,” he said, turning to head down to the crew quarters. “Probably too distracted to be looking at their omnitools anyhow.”</p>
<p>“With what Thane had in mind,” Joker chuckled, “I bet he turned both their cuffs to mute.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah,” Kolyat drawled laconically, “and what would that be.”</p>
<p>He turned his black gaze on Joker, who twisted his unshaven face up to the left.</p>
<p>“Is that one of those questions where if I answer I get myself hurt?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0095"><h2>95. Chapter 95</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Each door seemed to pass as though in a slow moving carousel. Thane had turned right down the hall as soon as the doors of the lift let out into a black passage lit with calming light. He only had to count in his head until he reached door thirty-nine, but even more obvious were the two looming cohens who gazed in his direction and wouldn’t move until he announced who he was.</p><p>“Thane Krios.”</p><p>The cohen both smiled. One leaned towards him.</p><p>“You have permission to do this only one time in my archives,” the cohen said low, waiting for Thane to meet his stare. “We’ll clean up after you, but only this once. We know what Trumhall did, and we don’t fault you for killing the diallo.” He held Thane’s gaze a moment longer, then straightened, turned, and scanned his omnitool over an infrared entry module.</p><p>The door released a hiss, and with it, the maniacal laughter on the inside.</p><p>Thane stood in front of the revealing doorway, looking at what shockingly awaited. The cohens looked away from the cell to Thane’s face, seeing the change overcoming his expression.</p><p>The mad laughter was ugly and confrontational. Thane did not look back at them as he stared at the hateful sight waiting within the soundproof walls.</p><p>The cackling grew madder when the inhuman eyes settled on their visitor.</p><p>“This. . . Is Stiv Kay,” Thane said, his voice a low, thoughtful prowl.</p><p>The laughter became louder.</p><p>“It’s Stiv Kay,” replied the cohen who had spoken before. “You want to put him out of his misery, now’s your chance.”</p><p>Thane was silent, only listening to the inane cackling.</p><p>“Does he even know who he is.”</p><p>“Cerberus said they found him balls out in the streets on some backwater planet, smoking Red Sand and shooting that shit the Humans use,” the cohen answered, gazing in at the madness. “I doubt he remembers anything.”</p><p>Thane flexed his hands again, eyes narrowing. In the reflection of his black irises, the cohen could see Stiv Kay’s face, a pale, hideous slab, giggling with glee.</p><p>Thane only saw the last man who had hurt Irikah. The thought that this vile creature was what had laid hands on her beautiful scales in her last moments on Kahje made the fire in his chest blaze.</p><p>“I will make sure he remembers <em>her</em>.”</p><p>Thane stepped into the room, alone with Stiv Kay laughing so hard suddenly he looked like he was about to suffocate.</p><p>The door closed behind him and sealed the frightful laughter in with a final click. The cohen arranged themselves against the door’s molding and prepared to make themselves comfortable for a long, easy watch.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0096"><h2>96. Chapter 96</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Are you ready to begin?” Strang whispered.</p><p>Lana shook her head.</p><p>He whittled away at her stubbornness. “You want Saren, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Then look at me and show me the strength that is Lana Shephard. . . Show me what I have to work with, child.”</p><p>Gripping herself mentally, Lana’s green eyes shown as she forced herself to lift her head from David’s and see her father. His holo backed away and cupped his jaw, fingers embedded in the brown and white beard. Three lifted as he evaluated aloud and said, “You can fight them, Lana, now that you know nothing can hold you back. Not even your loyalty to Foundations or the Alliance.”</p><p>“I was never loyal to Foundations. . .” Her voice petered off as she looked down at David. <em>You were.</em></p><p>“You tried for them, Lana, even after what they did to you.”</p><p>“It’s true.” Her voice was small.</p><p>“Now the hardest part, Lana, is still ahead.”</p><p>“How do you mean?” Her eyes went up to his.</p><p>“Miranda,” Strang said off side, “please return to the lower chamber.” His gaze settled back on Lana. “We must go to the beginning.”</p><p>“Beginning of. . .”</p><p>“Lana, what I need from you before we take the path to Saren, your road to reconstruction, is your <em>willing</em> cooperation to remember a few things from your past. . . Namely, Eden Prime.”</p><p>“No, please. Don’t ask for that.”</p><p>“Torfan’s unimportant. Foundations’ an afterthought. We <em>must</em> revisit Eden Prime.”</p><p>Lana took a calming breath. She stared at David. “I can’t. . . Not with him here.”</p><p>“I know, I know,” he whispered considerately. “That is why I have called Miranda and Quoyle down to help.”</p><p>The lift sighed with the activation of motors from above. Lana turned to see the bottom of the ceiling lower down, gradually revealing Miranda and the two cohens. First their legs, then their trunks, dark versus white, and their eyes soon followed.</p><p>Lana stepped away.</p><p>“We have gathered intel,” Strang went on, following her as she took two more steps back from the arriving Cerberus agent and Quoyle, the other cohen walking along the perimeter of the chamber and pulling something out of a snap pouch in the front of his jacket, “that Saren has been using something extremely powerful to subvert members of the Alliance and Council species he deems necessary for fulfilling his responsibility as warden of the galaxy, a self-proclaimed title among the Spectres he still serves with, Lana. . . We suspect it has something to do with Eden Prime. A dock worker named Powell had written an eyewitness account of what happened before the Alliance arrived to drive off the Geth. A ship with a mind numbing ability to render everyone unconscious or to make them hear voices that left them susceptible to guiding Saren to the beacon, and then be impaled on Dragon’s Teeth. We need to see what you saw that day, Lana, since Powell has been murdered.”</p><p>“He was killed by varren,” she said, turning to find the second cohen, tall with brown and black along his neck and crown. She could see herself holding David, her father, Miranda, and Quoyle in the reflection off the cohen’s lenses. His hand held a strange head clamp with cupped beads and wire.</p><p>“He was fed to varren, but regardless, Lana, I need you to <em>voluntarily</em> put on the vicers. . . <em>And</em> the suspendor.”</p><p>“What about David?”</p><p>“Give him to Miranda and she will take care of him while the process is performed. He’s already been treated with a sedative, so he will not wake up too soon.”</p><p>“You <em>what</em>? You <em>sedated</em> my son?”</p><p>Quoyle took hold of her arm and stilled as she glared at him, holding tight to David, snoozing contentedly with whatever narcotic they had given him prior to her arrival. He could have hurt her and taken the boy, but Quoyle waited for Lana to adjust under his grip, all while maintaining eye contact with her.</p><p>“Leave the child to the lady,” Quoyle warned. “You don’t get to hold him while the vicers are on.”</p><p>“I don’t want to lose any more memories.”</p><p>“You won’t, Lana,” Strang said. “There are two ways to use vicers. One, is to destroy. The other, more challenging, is to recall. We need your cooperation, however, to do the latter.”</p><p>“Just to recall Eden Prime?” she asked her father, looking away from Quoyle’s heavy stare.</p><p>“Just Eden Prime, Lana,” Strang assured her. “We won’t violate any other precious memories.”</p><p>“But how can you do that?” She carefully passed David into Miranda’s arms and warned the woman with a sensitive look in her eyes, “If he is not here when I come to, I will personally rearrange your genetics.”</p><p>“The technology of the vicers allows us to follow the age of the brain back into time. We may pass memories on our way to Eden Prime, but we will not linger and poke where we don’t belong. Mind you, Lana, it will be painful. I believe it would be better to allow Miranda to take David upstairs. Quoyle and Thekla will pair off. . . Thekla with Miranda, Quoyle with you,” Strang instructed.</p><p><em>That’s why he’s being so gentle. It has to be voluntary.</em> Lana sought Quoyle, who nodded as if sensing these thoughts.</p><p>“Are cohen so trustworthy?”</p><p>“We are screened by the Altha herself,” Quoyle said, as if this explanation should settle all her apprehensions about the union he was a part of.</p><p>Lana, who had still not let go of David, finally released him into Miranda’s arms. The woman smiled and backed away, glancing at Strang before she turned towards the lift.</p><p>“Wait.”</p><p>Lana strode forward, Quoyle’s grip on her arm ready to let go and so doing. She approached Miranda and put her hand on David’s back, kissed his hair, and slowly, reluctantly, let Miranda continue on.</p><p>“The suspendor, Lana,” Miranda said, as she boarded the platform, “is in the drawer of the desk. You will need to wear it to protect yourself and others in the room.”</p><p>Lana obediently walked to the desk Miranda nodded at and found the drawer activated by a mere press of her hand. The drawer slid out. Her hand dipped in, hesitated. It withdrew, a collar of silver coming into view.</p><p>She ran her fingers through her hair, Strang detecting a visible tremble in the hand holding the collar. The tremble increased when Thekla, the second cohen, passed the desk to join Miranda on the lift, leaving the vicers on the glossed surface.</p><p>Lana worked open the clasp of the suspendor, brushing her thumb over the light for its release. She opened the cords hidden inside the shell container, and spread these to fit over her head. She was stopped by Quoyle, who met her startled eyes.</p><p>“It has to be a <em>willing</em> mind,” he said, earnestly searching hers to see if she had any misgivings. “The vicers will hurt the more you resist, and from what I understand, you have much to fear.”</p><p>His voice was deep, penetrating. Lana’s eyebrows twitched.</p><p>“What doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger, Lana,” Strang quoted. “Put the suspendor on. Then take the vicers and hand those to Quoyle.”</p><p>Strang looked to Miranda, David, and Thekla.</p><p>Thekla activated the lift and the platform raised with all three. Lana watched them go, taking David and leaving her alone with the holo of her father and Quoyle.</p><p>A chair was retrieved from behind the desk and placed in front of Lana. Quoyle took out tethers and pulled up the support of the posterior head rest. He let Lana study the straps.</p><p>“Okay,” she said, recognizing the same set up the Alliance scientists had used on her when she was being ‘debriefed’ of Eden Prime, post recovery of the beacon. She stretched the suspendor over her head, gazing at her father. When it was secured, she plucked up the vicers and handed these to Quoyle who finally offered a grin, one that was conciliatory and gentle.</p><p>“Take the seat, Lana, if you are ready,” her father spoke. He had relit a match while observing from his distant location.</p><p>Quoyle offered his hand to Lana, who took it, feeling warmth in the large fingers. He guided her to the chair and let her sit on her own. The vicers he slipped into his pocket so he could kneel and begin securing her.</p><p>“You are a very brave woman.”</p><p>She glanced at him.</p><p>“I don’t have any other choice.”</p><p>The cohen nodded his navy blue crest.</p><p>“Then that makes things easier, doesn’t it.”</p><p>She thought of what she’d said to Tali. Survival was as good a reason as any.</p><p>David was on the floor above, waiting for her to come back from this trip she was about to take into the traumatized regions of her mind. She didn’t quite know what to expect. The first time with vicers on her scalp, it had only been to purge that which was making her an incompatible mess. The vicers had the ability to tear holes in one’s mind, but these also theoretically had the ability to correct damages done. It would mean sewing back the pieces into a clear picture based on the dispersed chemical strewn throughout her brain matter.</p><p>Lana closed her eyes, and breathed in deeply. She felt hands tightening a strap of synthetic material around her brow, neck, arms, chest, thighs, and ankles.</p><p>“Open your eyes, Lana.”</p><p>She did.</p><p>“The memories will display on the Kella monitor above the desk in front of you,” Strang informed, “and the feed will be sent directly into Cerberus’s storage base. I have specialists standing by who will help to unite the fragments of your mind, and we will reconstruct what William Clarke shattered to make you compliant.”</p><p>“Will I be myself afterwards?”</p><p>She had to ask.</p><p>Strang gave her a severe look. “No one else. I need you as you are, Lana. David needs you.”</p><p>He looked to Quoyle, still between her legs, his finger pressing closed the final strap around the ankle of her boot and pant. She lowered her gaze to him, too.</p><p>“Are you ready?”</p><p>Lana nodded.</p><p>Quoyle arose and stepped aside, letting her see the air above the desk suddenly materialize with a convex field that sparked and pulsed only to disappear, though a faint outline could still be seen of its presence. Quoyle walked behind Lana, removing the vicers from his jacket and carefully laying these onto the crown of her head, arranging the beads above her ears and removing a hidden cap at the end of the wire. There was a needle in its place, which he pierced into her neck.</p><p>Lana gasped, having forgotten about the surprise prick.</p><p>Before he had even inserted the needle, Quoyle and Strang witnessed the beads light with a bluish glow. The addition of the wire’s connection lit Lana’s eyes in the same color of light.</p><p>“Vicers are engaged,” Quoyle declared. He placed his hand on Lana’s shoulder, the woman staring vacantly ahead.</p><p>“Good luck,” he whispered, checking that the suspendor was active and blocking Lana from inadvertently triggering her dark energy.</p><p> </p><p>In Strang’s office at Cerberus, he took another pull of his cigarette and prayed this would work.</p><p>
  <em>Nothing ventured, nothing gained.</em>
</p><p>He knew it was Lana’s life he was risking, but rather would have her not know that they had never tried a reconstruction before. He didn’t want her panicking and ultimately causing a failed attempt that could leave her with brain damage.</p><p>“Activate the memory trip. Begin recording. I want everything reported on. Everything.”</p><p> </p><p>Quoyle looked to the kella display and began committing to his own memory what Lana was about to reveal.</p><p>He hoped she wouldn’t fight it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0097"><h2>97. Chapter 97</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Standing with his front to the man in the chair, tethered by restraints and naked from his subjective removal of clothes, Thane lowered his glare from Stiv Kay’s ghastly face to the floor on which his pale toes poked forward with yellow nails. The man was a filthy version of days passed, but Thane had never known him or laid eyes on him until now. He had always known the name, however.</p><p>“You were once a part of an organization run by militants,” Thane said, walking around the cackling form relaxing into its chair. The apparatus wall to the left of him was drawing Thane’s eye. He sought for something as he spoke to the deranged man. “You were Stirling Kayna from Mindoir, long before the purge by Batarians on the colony in ‘70. You were a man of honor then.” He stopped before a pair of vicers. “Your name only became Stiv Kay when you left the organization, and what happened to you, I wonder.” He unhooked the head clamp and beads with its white capped wire and carried it between his hands down into his pocket, hiding it away for the moment. Thane then reached for another device, a pair of metal prongs, and placed these in his belt. “Stiv Kay, the morally corrupted. Hand for hire, death in a pouch. You were cheap, so long as they gave you Red Sand and let you alone to your artwork.”</p><p>Thane stepped from the wall and moved behind the still creature, which had finally stopped to catch its breath. Stiv’s red eye stared at the door, seeing nothing besides the hallucinations in his head. Scooping down behind him, Thane pulled up a neck and head support from the back of the chair, and gripping Stiv’s pale, sweaty neck, held him against the back structure while he wrapped a tether around his gauntness. Next, he withdrew the tethers at the top of the securing clamp and strapped these around the sunken temples of the man.</p><p>“You seem to not know what your current predicament is. I fear you do not recognize me, or why you have been collected by Cerberus for my needs.”</p><p>A hint of lucidity befell the one organic eye in Stiv’s left socket, but faded. Thane did not notice it. He removed the vicers from his pocket and began to pull apart the wire and beads of the assembly. He arranged the vicers so these hung in Stiv’s face, the eyes focusing on the swinging parts.</p><p>“The mind is separated into layers. Our powers of retention are quite refined. Among Drell, that is. In Humans, the brain’s mechanisms for memory are further divided by chemicals, some which protect, some which are applied for things such as survival, and then there are those meant to function for reading, learning, teaching.” He moved behind Stiv, whose eyes and face tried to follow the swinging beads before they reached the limit of his vision and neck’s restricted range of motion. Thane trailed the beads over the pale brow barren of eyebrows and hair. “You have many cells in your memory. Some are blocking you from remembering who you really are, and perhaps, what you have done.”</p><p>Laying the contraption over Stiv’s bald pate, amid some straggly hairs that still desperately held on, Thane arranged the pieces to fall over his ears and slid these back some as the vicers lit with the activation of its sensors picking up on deep chemicals present within an organic mind. The color it cast through the beads lit blue and on the wall above the door was a kella monitor that activated as well. The visual attracted Stiv’s attention, and the laughing fit that was about to take over again was distracted as the involuntary smile on his face contracted into a grim, thin line of gray lips. </p><p>“My name is Thane Krios, and before you die, you will remember everything.”</p><p>He uncapped the wire and stuck the needle at its end into the sensitive drum of Stiv Kay’s ear. The devil’s eyes lit blue as he arched, shrieking.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0098"><h2>98. Chapter 98</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Wisps of black and white, too fuzzy to read. As the screen cleared, however, and Lana’s first memory came into view, Quoyle recognized a white teresha in the palms of her hands. She was looking down into it, the central stems with their delicate stamen rising to stretch towards him. The vision swerved at the sound of a deep voice, rumbling with the purl of a Drell’s chords, and before they could hear the words, the screen’s view jumped to the next memory. Darkness, pitch as black filled the kella and a blue spiraling flower began to emerge as Lana turned her sight away, a shrieking wail filling the replay of sound. “Lana, David misses you,” a man’s voice echoed into a well before fire lit the darkness away.</p><p>“Check that one,” Strang instructed his operators performing their piecing together of Lana’s viced memory in the room of Cerberus’s cell. “I saw an NA17 logo the likes of which is on her shirt. Go to it and give me a sample of who she’s with. . . Ah, Kaidan Alenko. . . And who’s that?”</p><p>“Looks like a girl, sir,” one of the operators said, swiping more images aside. “You might be interested to see this one.” The operative, a woman with dark hair like Miranda’s but shorter, sent a slide to Strang’s monitor. He smiled at the shockwave of biotic initiation in some slum.</p><p>“Analyze that and find out who’s so powerful they can wipe out a city block,” he ordered. Sweeping the slide away he looked through more of the memories, glancing at Lana’s inert form seated in the chair, Quoyle fixed by her side and staring at the kella in front of them. “Quoyle, you better watch out when we get closer to Eden Prime. I can’t promise that what you see won’t traumatize you like it did her.”</p><p>Quoyle replied to Strang’s holo standing off and manipulating his own unseen screens, a cigarette bit between the left corner of his mouth while he moved his hands about and paused to examine something.</p><p>“I think I’ve seen more trauma through these vicers than you have, <em>Illusive Man.</em> I’m not too worried by what we’ll find with our tech. It came out of <em>our</em> archives after all.”</p><p>“I <em>am</em> jealous,” Strang responded, removing the cigarette from his mouth and shouting across his office floor. “I want a quick run through any intimates. I don’t need to see any of that, so keep the memories moving backward!”</p><p>A few chuckles were heard as Strang returned the cigarette to his lips.</p><p>“I’ve got something, sir. Looks to be a fragment of Colony Sixteen.”</p><p>“I’ve got a facial match on Derek Powell.”</p><p>“Move in on it,” Strang said. “Let’s start picking up the pieces. How’s my daughter doing?”</p><p>“Vitals are high, sir, but nothing threatening.”</p><p>“Good. Monitor. And keep it gentle! I don’t need her hemorrhaging because someone was too hasty.”</p><p>“Are you going to inform her this was a test run?” someone asked.</p><p>“Of course not. She’d kill me. And don’t get wise. You try to blackmail me against my daughter and I’ll cut you off from rations for a month. No biotiball. None,” he chuckled passed his cigarette.</p><p>“You still sore about that Maestros game, sir?”</p><p>“I am.”</p><p>Lana suddenly jumped. The chair rattled with the force.</p><p>“What was that?” Strang checked the visual of Lana in the chair.</p><p>Quoyle stared downward. Lana’s hands were beginning to flex.</p><p>“She’s fighting it,” he said forebodingly. His eyes went to the kella.</p><p>“We’re getting closer, sir.”</p><p>The memories were revealing soft azure skies and a child’s laughter. Lana was returning to her early experiences with David as an infant. A partially covered breast appeared as a hand prepared to give it to a mouth, and suddenly there were angry shouts as the profile of the child disappeared and Lana’s vision spun to a carpet. Her fingers came away, drawing blood.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0099"><h2>99. Chapter 99</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Potential triggers. Descriptions left suggestive. Violence and implied torture. Physical assault. Post trauma.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Who am I. Say it.”</p>
<p>Stiv rolled around his eyes to stare at the kella displaying the playback of memories once locked in his mind. Thane removed the prong from his belt and slid them between the man’s thighs. He hardly recognized the cold steel on his sensitives before Thane wrenched and twisted.</p>
<p><em>That</em> got his attention.</p>
<p>“Who are you,” Thane said despite the man’s cries. He released the handle and went to the wall.</p>
<p>Stiv sucked on his lips, teeth splitting the thin skin.</p>
<p>“I don’t know who you are.”</p>
<p>“That’s unfortunate. You will. Keep watching.”</p>
<p>Thane turned on a laser over a work table and began to heat a narrow blade he took down from its holder. He took his time, stroking the red ray over the metal, watching it cast a faint glow. Occasionally, he looked up from his work to see a clip of memory sluicing out of Stiv’s addled mind. Going from the present into the past, he expected to see unpleasantness.</p>
<p>What he saw was Stiv’s own self destruction.</p>
<p>“You were an artist,” he remarked at the sight of bedraggled cuffs inching over a set of ivory keys, frail fingers, long and still yet certain of where to be placed to create beauty that to Thane seemed wasted on one so despicable.</p>
<p>The blade glowed brighter, the heat radiating closer to Thane’s fingertips.</p>
<p>“As I recall, the one who I am here for, aside from myself, had some intricate work performed on her hands and wrists. I take it now you liked to express yourself in other ways besides musically.”</p>
<p>Setting down the laser, Thane carried the knife over to Stiv as a new set of memories displayed on the kella. They did not surprise Thane, what with the violence he witnessed leaked out through the vicers’s grip on Stiv’s chemistry. Men were being stabbed and Stiv’s teeth were beginning to show.</p>
<p>Thane slowly inserted the knife into a spot of skin. It seared as it cut, and Stiv’s groan from the unpleasant memories lifted into a caterwauling wail. His body shook in the straps as Thane breathed evenly and performed.</p>
<p>“You let my wife bleed out while you defiled her. Keep your blood. I want you to live until you remember and say her name.”</p>
<p>His wrist turned and tugged up sharp. The chair rattled as Stiv struggled, and the more he struggled, the more the vicers hurt. Thane glanced again at the kella display. The memories took turns towards more violence and crime. Stiv’s vision was running from someone screaming for help, the glimpse of something red on a slender blade of steel grey.</p>
<p>“When you reach the memories that pertain to my interest, I hope you will recall quickly. I am about to remove your skin.”</p>
<p>He peeled upwards and Stiv clenched his hands on the arms of the chair. A brittle fingernail cracked and split from the nub of gnarled finger.</p>
<p>Thane removed the strip and tossed it on the ground. He stepped around it as he moved to Stiv’s other side and repeated the same.</p>
<p>“Your work was symmetric, I seem to remember.”</p>
<p>The blade had cooled some, but still cut with ease. Stiv choked on another cry.</p>
<p>“What are you doing to me! I don’t know your name!”</p>
<p>They were getting somewhere. Either the vicers were jarring his tongue into motion, or Thane’s promptings were exercising his memory of language.</p>
<p>“Do you know yours?” Thane asked, pulling the flaccid skin taut.</p>
<p>“Tell me and I’ll say it!”</p>
<p>The Drell clucked his tongue and <em>snicked</em> the last edge holding on.</p>
<p>“That would be cheating.”</p>
<p>He straightened and went back to the table to pick up another blade after setting down the first. He hesitated, then sought a supply of cloths meant for wiping down tools. He cleaned the first blade, set it back down, and resumed heating that of the second, this one with a short square end, but razor sharp.</p>
<p>The man in the chair began to scream and Thane coolly looked up at the kella. His brow ridge furrowed at the sight of Stiv’s own victimization by what appeared to be several other Humans. He raised his eye ridges when the violence progressed into more sullying punishments and Thane looked down to his work, not intending to remember any of it.</p>
<p>“Please! Make it stop!” Stiv screamed at the agony of his abuse, both that felt in the memory and the willful extraction of the vicers scouring his mind. To compare, the pain in his sides was calming into a pleasant burn.</p>
<p>“Remember a name, any, and I will grant you mircea.”</p>
<p>But Thane doubted Stiv would.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0100"><h2>100. Chapter 100</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] And now for some asinine, insensitive shooting the bullsh*t.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Thane. Where is he?”</p><p>The cohens outside room thirty-nine looked behind them at the door, then to Feron as the colorful, bright Drell sauntered down the hall with two of their peers.</p><p>“Went in twenty minutes ago,” said the cohen on the right. “I think he’ll be taking his time.”</p><p>“Good,” Feron said, hitching his brow scales upward and taking a lean on the wall opposite. He shoved his hands in his pockets while his cohen took post against same. “Guy deserves some closure. Too bad Stiv’s so rigged on drugs. Might take a while to jog his memory. Saw Kalia, by the way. <em>Pain</em> in the ass.”</p><p>The cohen who spoke shrugged. “He’s just doing his job.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know,” Feron brushed it off, looking down while he rubbed between his teness and fringe chutes with a red and blue finger. “But it’s Trumhall. Backstabber had it coming. No one better than Krios to get his hands on him.”</p><p>“Did you lose anyone?”</p><p>“Yeah, nearly lost myself,” Feron snickered. “Why do you think I freelance now? I been made.”</p><p>The cohens all hummed.</p><p>“You miss the outfit?”</p><p>“The Protectorate? Maybe sometimes. Drellahna be sassy here,” he replied with an eye ridge jumping in suggestion. The colorful Drell appeared impish. “I miss the blaze.”</p><p>The others agreed, all knowing their women were hard and put up with nil shenanigans from the male Drell. It was a sisterhood, which was hard to break into. Especially when the drellahna were so attached to the old traditions of Rakhana, where matriarchs provided the life blood of their clans. They were very proud.</p><p>“This one sees a Human. Heard she’s here with him. What’s she like?” the cohen asked, nodding his crest back at the door.</p><p>“Man, word flies,” Feron said, shaking his chin in amazement. His gaze lifted to each of the cohen and he puckered his lips, blowing out sharp as a whistle. “She <em>good</em>.”</p><p>The cohen nodded appreciatively. “The proinnseas are testing out new breeding programs. Maybe these two?”</p><p>“You can bet your ass against it,” Feron replied. “I don’t think his lady likes to be a test subject. Just a feeling.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0101"><h2>101. Chapter 101</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The seat jerked forward, Lana rasping for air.</p>
<p>A long, hard wail broke from her lungs as she fell through the memories of her entrapment by Will after the beacon. She proceeded to enter those that had formed before.</p>
<p>Images of incomprehensible violence and destruction wreaked wounds to a galaxy.</p>
<p>Quoyle stopped looking.</p>
<p>His hand sought Lana’s vicers.</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>Strang shouted, the holo flickering once with the intensity of his voice. “You touch her now, you’ll destroy her mind and she will be gone, do you hear?”</p>
<p>Quoyle retracted his fingers from Lana’s scalp and stared at the woman stretching the straps.</p>
<p>Her whole body began to tip the chair forward.</p>
<p>“Keep her still!”</p>
<p>Wave after wave of nightmare slammed into Lana’s head. Crashing, crashing against the rocks she clung to that were faith in herself and more. She grit her teeth and clenched her nails into the arm rests, howling through the pain of billions of lives burning, seething in fire and churned by machinery into putty.</p>
<p>Quoyle pinned down the back legs of the chair and forced himself to see the fiery memories rushing at Lana on the kella. He would have to report on it later to the Altha, who was well aware of Cerberus and their meeting.</p>
<p>“Lana! It has to be a willing mind!”</p>
<p>He hoped she could hear the reminder.</p>
<p>The tethers were cutting into her skin as she leaned and strained against these, unable to resist the threatening vacuum of the visions from the Prothean beacon.</p>
<p>“It’s. . . It’s the end of the world.”</p>
<p>Strang tore his eyes away from the feed he was observing and glared at the woman who spoke such ridiculousness.</p>
<p>“Keep your thoughts. Focus on Lana. Make me aware if she’s in danger of breaking her thresholds.”</p>
<p>“Sir,” the operative next to this woman replied, “she’s been <em>through</em> the threshholds.”</p>
<p>“Why didn’t you tell me?” His eyes bulged.</p>
<p>“There’s no way to take her out, sir,” the operative stammered. “She has to come out on her own or. . .”</p>
<p>“Or else what? Speak, please!”</p>
<p>The woman, a svelte blond with a bob cut, cleared her throat first.</p>
<p>“Or never, sir.”</p>
<p>“Get Thane,” Strang ordered, turning to the struggling form of his daughter in the chair with Quoyle bent behind it. “Get him in there.”</p>
<p>“And keep recording, sir?”</p>
<p>“By all means,” Strang supplied, mashing his cigarette onto the floor with an expensive leather shoe and wincing as Lana issued another heartrending scream.</p>
<p>His eyes jumped to the feed displaying where she was in her current layer of memory. Taking a second to recognize it, he strode over to a desk, behind which sat another operative who looked up at him anxiously. Disregarding the man, Strang reached down and plucked a print of a photograph out of his hand.</p>
<p>He stared at it, then at the flying images on the monitor.</p>
<p>“My God,” he dared breathe. “I think we’ve found it.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0102"><h2>102. Chapter 102</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Eden Prime. It’s a place you recognize, right?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yes. I’ve heard of it before. Frontier of space for Humanity. Successful colonization. Kind of considered a thumbing of nose at the rest of the galaxy.” She smirked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Anderson grinned at her, then looked to a Turian with white paint on his brown head plates. “This ovi-rid seems to think so, too.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She turned and faced Nihlus Kryik. The Spectre appraised her from his extra three inches in height.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You ready for this, Commander?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The evaluation is simple,” Anderson inputted, giving her an elbow in the side. “You take his orders. I’ll intervene if necessary, but Nihlus is one of the few Turians I know and trust.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She nodded and answered him with a question, “What do you want me to do?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We’re taking you to Eden Prime. There’s a beacon that was excavated, and I need assistance removing it,” Nihlus explained, his focus drawn to the scar on her chin. “Mainly search and recover. Once we locate the beacon, we secure it, wait for extraction crews.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Humanity’s going to get some credit for this one, right?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Lana,” Anderson warned her, though when she looked at him, the captain held his own smirk.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What, she thought. Humans find it and don’t get no share? Her gaze lifted to Nihlus, who fluttered his mandibles in a sigh of amusement.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0103"><h2>103. Chapter 103</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It appealed to him that Stiv was wretching from the onslaught of memories. He could remember his own experience with vicers when he was just a sprat, no more than twelve. A gift it had been to help teach him how to forget since a Drell didn’t know.</p><p>Lana and he were forging new memories in addition to what he’d retained and gathered before and after the vicers. He had much to delve from, and was looking forward to using the vicers on himself again. To clear Irikah and his mind of his memories that still interfered from time to time.</p><p>It was the only way he knew he could move on and be one with Lana. He would still know who Kolyat’s mother was, and keep some for those moments of self reflection, but the day he saw Irikah’s face on Lana’s at Tarsus Nine, his behavior afterwards had been a sure indicator that he was afflicted with tu-fira, the syndrome of losing one’s control over himself due to grief from a loss. Lana he had been about to tell of this when he handed her the white teresha in the skycab, but circumstances had dictated otherwise.</p><p>He would attend to it here, regardless, and help Stiv Kay remember Irikah. . . Who she was. . . What he took away from the galaxy. . . Before Thane backed out from the vicers’s control to finish torturing him.</p><p>Control was accomplished by retaining hold of an iconic memory. Something that anchored and held him fast down. Thane would use Lana and Kolyat as his icons.</p><p>“They say freedom is a woman, beautiful and true, who takes the darkness away and pulls one from his battle sleep,” Thane mused, picking up a second cord of wire on the wall and attaching it to the vicers on Stiv’s head. There was a bead on the side made to blend in, but a hole on its bottom revealed the insertion point for a pin. Thane attached these two items, then threaded the wire into a second set of vicers likewise, which he also retrieved from the wall. He laid this over crest and crown. Thane had been taught at an early age how to use the vicers, and it was remarkable, Thane believed, what Prothean technology could do. One just had to be careful and know to use the icons.</p><p>Before he connected the needle at the end of his vicers’s wire to the back of his neck, Thane carefully pictured Lana and Kolyat before he broke skin.</p><p>“I weary of cutting you, Stiv. Your flesh reeks and the feel of your skin repulses me. I will expedite your re-education of the reason why you are here suffering.”</p><p>
  <em>Her name is Irikah.</em>
</p><p>Thane entered the connection with Stiv’s mind, and by both vicers, he showed her why Irikah was one to love, not hate nor torture. She was sweet, beautiful in both heart and mind like Thane’s Lana, though Irikah was not quite skilled nor comfortable with killing. She had defended herself once or twice against hoodlums and thugs, but only with Thane’s help, while being a scientist at work for the Illuminated Primacy. She assisted independent research in the resolution of infectious disease affecting the Hanar species.</p><p>“Yes,” Thane murmured, easily giving himself to the vicers and finding no pain, showing no reluctance. He pushed aside Stiv’s memories and replaced them with Thane’s own of Irikah.</p><p>The birth of his son, Kolyat.</p><p>The joy Thane had felt.</p><p>The love Irikah had always shown. . . Love that brought tears to Stiv’s one real eye.</p><p>Everyone was born of a mother, or had at least found and lost someone who cared for them from time to time. Someone who mattered, and made Stiv Kay feel necessary and alive.</p><p>As Thane had been made to feel by Irikah.</p><p>He said goodbye to her as he passed Irikah into Stiv’s mind. Holding onto the anchor, his memories of Lana and Kolyat, Thane closed the connection, his tragic dreams now lost and stored somewhere else—in Stiv’s mind.</p><p>He removed the vicers from his head and neck, slowly turning his cold black stare on Stiv.</p><p>“Now, let us <em>truly</em> begin your payback.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0104"><h2>104. Chapter 104</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Bodies littered the ground. Charcoal and ashen. A gust of hot air blew, lifting the remnants to scatter off in the wind. The smell of acrid chemical permeated the filters of her suit, causing her to bawk and close these.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What happened here?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Jenkins, stop going ahead of me. You want to get shot first?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The young corporal chuckled, sending blue eyes over her way. These looked grey beneath the visor.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Come on, Commander.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A group of six shadows moved forth from the treeline ahead on a hill covered by boulders and trees.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Ambush!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She ducked while the corporal to the left of her dropped.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Shit—Jenkins!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But he was dead before he hit the ground. The result of a sniper bullet through the front of his helmet led to a small stream of blood trickling forth from under the rim pressed against his forehead.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We got armor piercers! Keep to cover and watch your six! Return fire!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What about Jenkins?!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Fucking shoot! There’s Geth overhead and you’re worried about dead bodies!?”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0105"><h2>105. Chapter 105</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“She smiles at you and awakes you from your darkness. . . Erases your cowl. . . Gives you new light by which to see and be guided. . . I have had one, and now Fate grants me another.” Thane murmured to himself as he cleaned the tools, instruments by which he had extracted each and every painful moan and cry from the over aware Stiv Kay. He glanced behind him at the remains on the floor and in the chair. The kella display was empty, void of any memory visuals. Thane removed the vicers and slipped the needle ensconced by the folds of ear, returning this to a container meant for sterilization. He moved meticulously about his work, not a drop of blood on his boots or pants. Thane had removed his jacket so it would not impede him, and stood on the side of the room with the highest number of tools missing from the wall of apparati. Thinking of Stiv’s toothless mouth—it had at one point held at least twenty before Thane went to town on it—made him consider using the vicers again to parse it out of his memory, but he would need a special tool for that if he didn’t have Stiv in which to dump it.</p><p>“That was satisfying,” he said aloud as he detected a fresh movement of air and pushed his arms through his jacket seeves. The door had opened.</p><p>Thane reached for his smart cuff and slid this over his wrist, noticing the call indicator now as he turned to face Feron.</p><p>Feron and the cohen appreciated the work of the assassin by reeling away and covering their mouths.</p><p>“Aya,” one of the cohens gasped. “At least he kept it neat.”</p><p>Feron toed it around the dead form of the previous Human, and Thane watched him come near as he also selected his messages and perused the transcripts, their senders, and times.</p><p>Several were from Miranda and Feron.</p><p>“Thane, you been in here for an hour.”</p><p>“Not long enough,” he mumbled, brow twitching as he scanned the messages.</p><p>Sharply, he looked up.</p><p>At Feron.</p><p>“Lana’s been viced?”</p><p>He pushed the Drell aside as he rushed for the door, stepping lightly around what remained of Stiv’s hand on the ground. Two cohen waited outside while the other pair went in, leaving space for Thane and Feron to move through them on their way to the lifts.</p><p>“How long ago?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Feron said, the cohen falling in line behind them. “Check the cuff. Maybe Miranda said something.”</p><p>Thane stormed down the hall, his purpose renewed by the transcribed calls on his omnitool in which Miranda had ordered him back because Lana’s vice trip was ensnaring her.</p><p>Thane knew how to get her out, but he had to reach her first.</p><p><em>What was the first memory she revealed?</em> he wondered. <em>She likely doesn’t know how to anchor or hide memories from the vicers.</em></p><p>One of the lift doors opened. Out stepped none other than a greatly inconvenienced green and blue overton.</p><p>Kalia.</p><p>“Man!” Feron griped.</p><p>The overton did not hesitate to move straight for them. As he did so, Thane saw the Drell reach into his coat and pull out a weapon.</p><p>“Overton Kalia,” Thane warned with a low, tebral growl, “I’d advise you <em>not</em> to delay me.”</p><p>“Thane Krios,” Kalia brandished a badge from over his gun, a Quell9 with semiautomatic rounds, “you’re to come with me for questioning on the death of Clyde Trumhall. I will use force if you choose to evade me again.”</p><p>Thane wasted no time. He slowed, raising both hands beside his head. Before Kaliaor even Feron could blink one of their eight eyelids, Thane had overpowered the overton and now pressed his back to the wall.</p><p>
  <em>“You’re in my way.”</em>
</p><p>He deprived Overton Kalia of the badge and firearm, neatly disassembling the gun and keeping the badge for himself. Thane then depressed a spot of scale beside Kalia’s tebris, and the poor Drell slid down with eight eyelids blinking as the air in his mouth suddenly sweetened. He passed out from Thane’s application of pressure.</p><p>“He’ll have a headache afterwards,” Thane explained to an anxious Feron. “Nothing serious.”</p><p>They resumed down the hall.</p><p>“I know he’s a pain in the ass, but it <em>is</em> just Kalia,” Feron said, looking back behind the cohen keeping up with them. “You’ll make the Drell look incompetent.”</p><p>“I’ve no time. Lana needs help, and she is my first priority right now.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0106"><h2>106. Chapter 106</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Well, ain’t that just something?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Get off of her. She’s a marine. . . What company you with, soldier?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“One hundred twelfth, ma’am. Ashley Williams. Gunnery chief.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Where’s your squad?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The comm paused with a breath.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Dead, ma’am. I’m the last of them.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“How much ammo you got?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Still a few cartridges. Three at last count. Ten in the gun.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Partner up. You’ll keep with me. I need a sniper. . . Now let’s move out.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The woods gave them cover with trees as wide as walls, growing horizontally as well as upwards, shading them with canopy. The soft, apprehensive call of some creature sounded out in the air before abruptly ending.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“What’s that ahead of us, Williams?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Colony cubes. Main science division,” the new marine said.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Let me ask you something. . . You see a Turian go by? Red armor and black? Hard to miss him. He’s pretty big.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“No birds, ma’am.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Only Geth?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“And a few dead civilians, ma’am. . . There’ll be more up ahead.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The roar of heavy engines cut them off. Everyone crouched.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Looks like another Geth dropship heading to the landing port.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Why are there so many goddamn Geth in this place?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Quiet, lieutenant. You two: take out your long scopes and pin them down from the hill on the east side. Williams, come with me. We’ll take them out from that shed north of us, twenty yards.”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0107"><h2>107. Chapter 107</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as the lift doors opened on level eighteen, Thane and Feron stepped out into the hall with haste, wide strides, pivoting left on the glossed floor and moving straight as they could to the gateway, winding around Drell and Hanar awaiting trials and consuls. The admins at the round desk checked out their passage with brief glances, only to resume their inspections of files being handed in and alerts on their kellas.</p><p>Down the one hundred thirty-five steps they took two at time, clearing the bottom three as they leapt into a run to the parked skypod.</p><p>Feron contacted the vessel’s lock mechanism with an app in his omnitool, decreasing their delay by having the doors open automatically for their arrival. He took the front seat for navigation; Thane took the opposite, sliding soundlessly into place. The lights of the interior and their controls were already up and running, Thane scanning in to harness command of the dual driver system.</p><p>“How did you. . .” Feron blinked, puzzled, at Thane.</p><p>“I still have rights, I presume, to the Hanar security system, what with the Altha’s invitation to rejoin the Protectorate.”</p><p>He and Feron were both surprised by the sudden incoming of a call to the skypod’s ranged com system. Thane picked up as he maneuvered the vessel into air and went to join the outflow of traffic in the tunnel.</p><p>“Nothing like a global grid to find you two on,” was Miranda’s voice speaking over the private channel.</p><p>“Miss Lawson,” Feron interrupted to greet her, “how’s it going?”</p><p>“Not good,” she replied. “Lana’s destabilizing, but so long as she’s in the stream, she’ll be fine. We’re not sure how to guide her out.”</p><p>“Why would you use vicers on her in the first place,” Thane remarked. “And why would you use them if you didn’t know how to remove them? Surely Quoyle can instruct you or one of the cohens you seem to have on hand.”</p><p>“She’s beyond a level where she can safely come out. The Illusive Man has a team working on uniting fragments of memory into a glimpse on Eden Prime, but we need you to try to reach Lana. She’s in a little too deep.”</p><p>Thane shook his head. “Does Cerberus often make such wild and vain efforts?”</p><p>“No. . . Not this cell. . . But sometimes we have to take risks. We’ve found what we needed. . . Look here, Thane, the Illusive Man was not going to enjoin you to be in on this part of Lana’s intake, but since she was adamant about maintaining her current. . . Team. . . We are offering you an incentive to stay on as her. . . Colleague.”</p><p>Feron glanced at Thane, who steered the skypod around a massive pillar dividing traffic ahead.</p><p>“I intended to. . . With or without your <em>official</em> invitation.”</p><p>He gripped the manual steering handles and guided the skypod downwards, leaving the slow speed of traffic and following along closer to the pyrotube’s base.</p><p>“I want Lana safe. . . Where is her son, David?”</p><p>“Still with me,” she replied. “We’ll be keeping him within the separate chamber above Lana’s and Quoyle’s. He would be safer that way. . . At the Illusive Man’s insistence.”</p><p>“Of course. I understand,” Thane said. He checked the layout of the tunnel before their windshield. “We’ll be arriving shortly. Please let me see David when I get there.”</p><p>“Hold on, Mr. Krios. The Illusive Man would like to have a word.”</p><p>“Thane.”</p><p>His brow scales tensed at the sound of the male voice. There was something familiar about it.</p><p>“Illusive Man,” Thane cautiously answered, “you have the right Drell.”</p><p>“I’ve been informed,” came the terse reply. “I have a personal request to see that Lana is safely—meaning her mind intact—is safely removed from this unorthodox method of jigsaw puzzling fragmented memories. I believe she has a personal interest in you, if I’m correct. One that might lead her back from where she is in her current frame of mind. . . Physically even. . . And if my source is accurate, I know you are interested in her as well.”</p><p>Thane glanced at Feron.</p><p>“You do not owe me any favors, but if you did this for me, I would compensate you by removing the bounty I’ve arranged on your hide for having the gall to sleep with her.”</p><p>“Did I miss something here?” Feron asked.</p><p>Thane squeezed his brow scales downwards.</p><p>“It. . . What does that have to do with. . .”</p><p>“You should understand that Lana is my daughter. I would be remiss to let such violations slide. . . But if you can save her, I will turn the proverbial cheek and let you live.”</p><p>Feron’s mouth gaped as he stared at the unflappable Drell across from him.</p><p>Thane’s grip on the handles tightened.</p><p>“For one to threaten me for having slept with his daughter, and while he has inflicted on her this possibly fatal vice trip, <em>I</em> would be remiss to forgive such a transgression against someone I care deeply about, let alone make sacrifices for.”</p><p>“Then it’s agreed that we will do all in our power to not kill each other if and when Lana comes out of her nightmare.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0108"><h2>108. Chapter 108</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Sand kicked up as they transitioned from the walking path onto the landing grid of the port. The Geth were sputtering and slow to shut down from being riddled with ammo by four separate rifles.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Hey, Commander. Look over here. We got ourselves a dead Turian.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“It’s Nihlus.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>An ominous silence befell them. The others looked to her. Williams wasn’t aware and bent to move the Turian’s skull. Brain matter fell through the sloshing hole in the back of the head behind the posteriorly titled horns.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“This is bad.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Okay. . . We got a dead Spectre on our hands and a missing beacon. Look around. See if there were witnesses. . . I’m not going back to Anderson without some fucking explanation why this fucking Turian decided to run around alone and get his head blown open.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“He was shot from behind, Commander.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Williams’s helmet turned up to hers.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She obediently spread out across the port with the others, searching for survivors, signs of life.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The Turian’s lifeless eyes stared at her boots. With a shake of her head, she, too, began searching the nearby piles of flaming debris and bodies of Geth.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Commander. . . Over here. . . I’ve found someone. . . He seems pretty scared, but whole.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Good work, Williams. Who is he?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There was a pause as Williams asked the man for his name.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“Powell. Derek Powell. Says he works the docks.”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She marched up to a shifty-looking man in a skull cap and goatee, mustache. She aimed her rifle at him, then at the Turian body sprawled eight feet away.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“You must have seen something. Did you kill him?”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“No,” the man said nervously, fumbling with his hands, “I saw another Turian. . . I think they knew each other. . . When the dark one turned around, I saw. . . I saw the other one raise his gun and shoot him in the head. . . It was cold blooded. . . I’ve never seen someone die before. . .”</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Williams gave her a sidelong glance. She prodded the man in the chest with her rifle.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“What exactly were you doing here on the docks. . . Powell?”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0109"><h2>109. Chapter 109</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The skypod landed, alighting in the lot where Thane and Lana had first set foot on the tiles of the pyrotube’s floor. Thane and Feron threw open the doors and rushed out with consecutive slams, slowing only to wait for the entrance to the private Archive chamber to open. Impatiently, Thane twisted his shoulders to slide through the parting doorway and frame, ignoring the VI, Advent, as it materialized to greet them.</p><p>“Welcome—“</p><p>“Advent, off. Where is she?”</p><p>Thane made straight for Miranda and David, but the cohen, Thekla, barred his way. He crossed his thick arms and looked unafraid of the assassin.</p><p>“It’s alright, Thekla,” Miranda said, stepping out into view from behind his big bulk.</p><p>Thane’s face turned to the sleeping boy in her arms. She was rubbing his back, a small pat now and then.</p><p>“Lana’s downstairs. They’re waiting for you, Thane.”</p><p>“May I see him?”</p><p>She considered him for several seconds, knowing Lana and Strang had entrusted David to her care.</p><p>Thane kept his face impassive. “I am not going to leave with him. I have pledged my arm and my protection to both Lana <em>and</em> David.”</p><p>She breathed out through her small nostrils, a contemplative sound as one prepared to give to another’s unwelcome demand.</p><p>Thane took David carefully from Miranda’s arms and held the toddler’s body snug tight to his chest. The first thing that struck him was the child’s smell: how strong it was and different. <em>So this is who you are, David.</em> He could feel the child’s rapid heartbeat in the sensitive skin of his hands, and as he looked at the upturned nose with its tiny nostrils making the faintest of sounds, Thane suddenly smiled before the others who were watching him.</p><p>“He’s beautiful.” <em>Like Lana.</em></p><p>Someone’s omnitool buzzed, and Feron displayed his screen. Strang’s face shown through the orange glare.</p><p>He removed a cigarette from his mouth and addressed him and Thane patiently.</p><p>“Hello, Feron. Thane, glad to see you’re acquainted with my grandchild. Now if you don’t mind, my daughter needs your help.”</p><p>Thane stared at the man through Feron’s screen as Strang did the same, and none spoke their thoughts to one and other.</p><p>The com disconnected without any further pleasantries.</p><p>“He’s just nervous,” Miranda said, taking David back as Thane passed the boy into her care again.</p><p>David stirred but for a second, shrugging his small shoulders beneath a grey sweater with small waves and Hanar on the breast pocket. Thane hesitated when he took his hand away, then reached to remove the child’s wear.</p><p>“Let me take this with me to Lana.”</p><p>Feron and the other two observed him remove the small article made of kajal, leaving David’s hot little body with a white, short sleeved shirt over dark green jeggings.</p><p>“What are you going to do with that?” Feron asked as Thane delicately folded these and held the sweater between his hands.</p><p>“A mother knows her child by smell, they say. It is true among drellahna,” he explained, as he turned his back on them and drew nearer the round lift. “I’ve a feeling it’s the same among Humans.”</p><p>Feron wrinkled his lips and looked at Miranda, then down at the sleeping boy’s head tilting to the side on her arm.</p><p>“Here. Give him to me. We’ve got a bond going already, and watching you hold him that way is giving me anxiety pangs.” Feron pulled David free from her arms, Thekla turning round to see him take the boy and sway away from them through the rhythmic rocking of his big shoulders. A pleasant hum could be heard coming from Feron’s tebris.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0110"><h2>110. Chapter 110</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The lift lowered down and Thane could not help but dig his nails into the kajal sweater in his hands. Suddenly, without Irikah’s presence in his mind, Lana on the cusp of losing hers, Thane had never felt so lonely.</p><p><em>What if I can’t help her?</em> he thought, lowering two eyes to the article of clothing.</p><p>Light began to filter in through the rim of the lift he was standing upon, achingly slow to reach the bottom level. As more and more of the next chamber came into his vision, Thane saw the illuminated figure of Quoyle standing by a seated woman beholden by kella display that was but a halo, unshowing of anything. Beside Quoyle, however, was the figure of a man with the same head, hair, and cigarette that the Illusive Man supposedly had revealed to him over Feron’s omnitool in the chamber above.</p><p>Both Quoyle and the Illusive Man, Lana’s father, were watching the woman. Their eyes turned to the lift, one after the other, the gaze of Strang’s holo following to where Quoyle’s attention had newly rooted itself.</p><p>Thane stepped down from the lift before it settled into its holdings within the floor of the lower chamber and followed the path of his footsteps earlier with Lana, when they had greeted Feron holding David.</p><p>He looked from the cohen and the hologram of the Illusive Man to she who was seated, strapped to a black chair, her eyes aglow with the matching blue lights from the scalloped beads of the vicers laid upon her hair and over both ears. Seeing Lana transfixed to the memories in her head through the vice trip gripped him.</p><p>His hands tightened on the small grey sweater with its Hanar and waves.</p><p>“What. . .”</p><p>He saw the suspendor. Half expected it. No way would she have been able to be viced and not wear one without being a danger to those within her vicinity. Thane wet his lips and stepped about her, eyes not leaving the woman he had fallen into love with. “Lana.” She said nothing.</p><p>Strang spoke. “Let him see what she’s seeing, Quoyle.”</p><p>As he requested, the cohen turned on the kella via omnitool and Thane witnessed the current memory of Lana somewhere in the past with the iron girders beneath a large bridge she was running under, evading fire and returning it to whomever was stalking her.</p><p>“She’s moving forward again in her mind, Thane,” Strang explained. He pulled on the cigarette. “This is Colony Sixteen.” Smoke then followed from his mouth.</p><p>“Eden Prime,” Thane replied.</p><p>“Correct.” Strang hesitated. “As you know, much of what happened with Lana’s fall from grace was a direct result of what happened there. She came into contact with the beacon, and the state it left her in made her vulnerable. She had always been targeted, but now was an opportunity. The Alliance just didn’t realize what the beacon had done to her,” he added in anger. Strang inhaled and held his breath.</p><p>“Did she put on the suspendor willingly, or did you force her?”</p><p>“She did it willingly,” Quoyle said on behalf of Strang. He peered intently at Thane, who looked back to measure the truth in the cohen’s words.</p><p>“I asked, and she put it on,” Strang said.</p><p>He sighed and rubbed a finger knuckle into his eyebrow, the cigarette streaming a tendril of smoke above his dark hairline.</p><p>“You’ll need to reach her before she finds the beacon. She has calmed somewhat within this portion of memory. . . Figures it would be while she still has faith in the Alliance.”</p><p><em>Or that she has a gun in her hands,</em> Thane thought. He would have smiled if not for the darkness of the situation.</p><p>Thane understood the importance of Strang’s message. The Illusive Man needn’t say more about the additional trauma Lana would experience through having to relive a third trip through the beacon interaction and any ensuing emotional injury, remembered pain, the horror of her emergence from recovery into Project Foundation’s clutches.</p><p>And William Clarke, at any moment, could reoccur to Lana, along with all of his abuse.</p><p>There were vice trips Thane suspected as well. Turmoil and angst that would crush a lesser being.</p><p>Thane blew gently at her face. An experiment.</p><p>The kella display jumped to an ephemeral image of a figure in a long jacket standing in the rain on a sidewalk. A black stare and green and yellow patak was visible from beneath an umbrella, then Lana’s mind returned to the holding memory at Eden Prime.</p><p>Taking a kneel before Lana, Thane continued to hold her glowing eyes in his steady stare. Reverently, he raised and held the kajal sweater before her nose. Strang watched through the QEC thread, narrowing both eyes for inspection and lowering the cigarette.</p><p>“Is that. . . David’s sweater?”</p><p>Quoyle spoke. “Clever, Thane. Scent calls memory.”</p><p>“It will call her back to where I her want to be,” Thane said. “My hope is the scent of her son will be stronger than her need to fight in the present state of mind. . . Now be quiet while I try and talk to her.”</p><p>They all fell silent as Lana’s memory stirred, and through the kella, could be seen turning from what appeared to be a very large bomb she was attempting to deactivate.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0111"><h2>111. Chapter 111</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Hey, baby.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The child was in his crib, kicking gently as the light muslin tangled about his feet. She leaned over the rail to reach down and remove the blanket, then gave him her small finger to grasp onto. David’s jewel-like green eyes gazed up at her, and the toothless mouth formed into a gummy, wide grin as he cooed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sweet, sweet baby.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Lana.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She reached for David again and smelled spice on the wind. . .</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Suddenly there was darkness.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The sound of something ancient sang by and above. Brilliant lights glowed, flashed, abrupt to be cut off as the skypod transitioned into a tunnel all night.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her heart raced at the unexpected kiss from a hot mouth, hot fingertips burning memorably into her jaw. His taste was like cinnamon and citrus, allspice and nutmeg.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He spun her in the galley aboard the Villetta. Graine and Joker played the music. Tali and Kenn rose to dance as Thane tipped her backwards.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The shower was so hot, the pain in her side diminishing as he let down her leg. Her lashes collected the spray from the showerhead. Through the blur of waterdrops, she could see the tight scales of his chest and shoulders collecting spray into little beads. These rose and fell as he breathed against her, their skin touching. . . His eyes closed. . . Her hand in his own.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She sprinted to his voice in the darkness, anxiety and thrill filling her as fast as the water rushing to rise above her ankles.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Thane!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He stood alone in the rain, regarding her from under the umbrella. Her shirt was collecting rain drops as the storm started to open. The cold air bit her skin, making her feel alive.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You no longer wear the armor or the rifle, but you are yet the ever ready soldier.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There was a small visor over his left eye. He removed this.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She looked for a weapon on his persona, and cursed that she was unarmed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His eyes unsettled her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Are you still training, Miss Shephard?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her mind ached with the recognition of the old name. Hers.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Is that a come on or are you trying to get my hopes up that you’re a recruiter.” </em>
  <em>The rain fell faster.</em>
  <em>“Because I hate to disappoint you. . . I’ve got a toddler.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Do you ever wonder if or how you could serve again, Ms. Shephard?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“All the time, not that it’s practical. The Council saw to that. The Alliance. . . I’m settled down though. No one has to worry about me making a trip to the Citadel.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Tell me, Commander, is it easy to hide your pain from your child?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You learn to hide a lot of things when you’re a parent. . . What do you want? Who are you?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Come walk with me, Commander. I have room to spare.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He offered the umbrella again, and looking into his eyes, she went with him.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0112"><h2>112. Chapter 112</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana fluttered her lashes and a view came into focus of something green and black, red beneath the line of a jaw. Someone was reaching around her, removing something light and hard from off her hair, taking great care not to catch it in the strands by her ears.</p><p>Thane murmured something along the lines of ‘kala’, and finally unhooked a captured bead. He settled back and blinked, surprised, when he saw her eyes moving with him, fully registering him in the present.</p><p>“Lana.”</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>“Hello.”</p><p>The expression on his face was one of momentary surprise, but quickly vanished, replaced by genuine pleasure. He blinked twice more, handing off the vicers with a toss of his hand to Quoyle in order to hastily free his fingers so he could put them around Lana’s head and kiss her.</p><p>They kept it brief for the father’s sake.</p><p>“I will serve you more of that when the time is appropriate,” he whispered in her hair, his shoulder curving to block them from the others’ view.</p><p>“I thought I heard you.” She smiled at him.</p><p>Thane rescued the kajal sweater from falling onto the floor and deposited it into his jacket as he returned his gaze to hers. The words ‘I love you’ were in her eyes. Somehow he knew. And in the glass obsidians of his, where pupils widened in the darkness of those lenses, Thane returned the sentiment, longing to hold her again.</p><p>She allowed Thane to pull her up, free of the chair and straps. He stepped once back and turned, she following with her head as they looked to Strang’s holo, Quoyle reserving a grin behind the fixation of a firm line made by his dual colored lips.</p><p>“Very good,” Strang said, clearing his throat. He raised an imaginary hat to Thane and bowed his head lightly with a turn. “I’m in debt to you, but as you know what the repercussions were, debt is cleared.”</p><p>“Likewise,” Thane said darkly.</p><p>The two men, Drell and Human, shared an awkward silence, Lana oblivious as to what Strang had threatened Thane with on his ride over with Feron. Quoyle remained expressionless, the vicers gone from sight as he turned to Lana and held out both hands.</p><p>She slipped her hands uncertainly into his own. He pulled her towards him, one hand raising towards her neck. She leaned back a bit.</p><p>“The suspendor, Lana,” Strang said.</p><p>“Oh. . . Go ahead.” She brushed her fingers over the collar, but Quoyle’s hands moved into place, deactivated the suspendor, and unsecured the clasp. He carefully raised this over her head, Lana ducking some to assist the final few inches. She moistened her lips with her tongue and blinked, drymouthed and thirsty.</p><p>“Thank you,” she said to Quoyle. He stepped back with the suspendor and pocketed this into a pouch behind his jacket cover. “You were helpful. . . And gentle to me.”</p><p>“It has to be a willing mind,” he reiterated. “Both to put the vicers on, and to take them off.”</p><p>“A trap of the wearer’s own doing,” she said, understanding.</p><p>“Yes,” he nodded. “It takes some teaching, and the learning curve is punishing, but the less one struggles, and eventually one does struggle less, then the vicers can be removed without undue damage. If I had threatened to put them on you, being an external source of angst and fear, this would have compelled you to resist more.”</p><p>“I hate to think how you could be pissed off and use those against one unwilling.”</p><p>He grimly nodded again. Lana turned to her father, and glanced at Thane.</p><p>“Something went wrong, didn’t it?”</p><p>Strang pushed his lips up, crushing his mustache into the flesh between his nostrils.</p><p>“Maybe.”</p><p>“It’s over now, Lana,” Thane said, assisting the Illusive Man. He passed Strang a look. He was doing him a favor, hopeful it might smooth things out between the two men. “I’m sure much was <em>gained</em> from this trip into your memory. How are you feeling?” He brought his eyes back to hers.</p><p>She smiled at him. “Good. A little parched, but good.” She held his gaze, and the thrum from his chest could be felt by her ears.</p><p>And Quoyle’s. He broke into a grin then.</p><p>“My, what a spell you have over him, Lana Shephard.”</p><p>“Yes, well, moving on,” Strang interrupted, clapping his hands together and gesturing a ‘move along’ type wave to those they could not see on his end of the com. When he turned his attention back to Lana and Thane, he said, “We have quite a bit to filter through. Reports are compiling steadily. I suspect you will want to check on David—he is with Miranda—and his sedative will wear off in two hours. It is safe, so don’t give me grief. Please keep your omnitools active for when I need to contact you, but in the meantime, go enjoy the reservations my aides have made at a waithouse in Nauza. I will also be sending someone to greet your crew and move them to same location. Do you mind?”</p><p>“Umm, there’s a Krogan with us who might be wanting to rejoin.”</p><p>“We’ll find him. Follow the cohen and try to be polite to Miranda.” Strang raised his eyebrows, clasping his hands together at his sternum. His eyes and then his face turned to Quoyle.</p><p>“Yes, Illusive Man.” Quoyle thrummed and turned towards the lift as Strang’s holo vanished with him pivoting away. As the cohen passed by the desk on which Lana had leaned earlier, he picked up the sphere for the QEC, and tossed it to her quick hands. She caught the sphere as Thane motioned her forward, following behind their escort.</p><p>“Why do you call him Illusive Man when you know he’s my father and I’ve been standing right here?”</p><p>“Who said I knew he was your father, never mind his real name?” Quoyle arched his red eye ridge as he gave her a circumspective look. Lana lowered her lashes, tilting her face to an angle so that her tightlipped grin aligned with her shoulder.</p><p>“Come on, you think I’m buying that? Or are all cohen so obtuse. . .”</p><p>Thane chuckled as the big cohen gave her a wink and strode onto the platform that would take them to David.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0113"><h2>113. Chapter 113</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana waited this time for the lift to meet the upper level. As the room came into view among its small desks and black walls with multiple consoles, the sight of three pairs of legs had her wondering which was keeping David. Obviously the glaring white clothing of the woman named Miranda would have been the logical guess, but when she saw the legs of the cohen and Miranda still in contrast to the pair of pants and shoes walking in a rhythmic swaying, she was puzzled. Then she saw it was Feron, and found herself enjoying the more and more she got to see of the irrepressible Drell.</p>
<p>“Commander,” Miranda said as she and Thekla greeted their arrival with the appropriate stares. “Feron took him from me.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” Thane said, nudging Lana forward off the lift with a hand on her lower back.</p>
<p>The touch was electrifying.</p>
<p>“Lana Shephard,” Feron smiled, holding fast to David who was over his arms, the toddlers’ own strung across the Drell’s coat and chest. His forearms provided a support for the child as he tucked these against him and rocked his body side to side. Lana wasn’t able to hide her grin from the Drell as he turned protectively away from her outstretched hands, threateningly coming towards him from the lift. He furrowed his brow scales of blue and red and various hues.</p>
<p>“I would like my son back.”</p>
<p>“You’ll wake him up.”</p>
<p>“He’s sedated, which makes me wonder about the kian you mentioned.”</p>
<p>“I would never.”</p>
<p>She arched her eyebrow at his defensive position, holding the boy faintly snoring under his orangely brilliant tebris.</p>
<p>“Feron.”</p>
<p>With a sigh and a roll of his pupils behind the lenses, he relinquished control of David into Lana’s hands, who turned David and embraced him as she held her son, nestling her cheek against his head. Softly stroking the fine hairs on the nape of his neck, she bent and kissed the skin of his forehead, then turned to Thane who stood beside her, calmly looking on. He lowered his gaze from Feron to David, then up to Lana’s.</p>
<p>“He has your eyes and nose. The mouth is very familiar.”</p>
<p>“He looks like his father.”</p>
<p>“That, too,” Thane agreed, recalling the memory of William Clarke’s face. “It could be worse.”</p>
<p>“How so?” She anxiously furrowed her brow.</p>
<p>“He could look like Feron.”</p>
<p>Feron laughed, appreciating the rib for his pheromonal release at the presence of Lana in addition to Miranda. Both were ‘interesting’ looking women, one with the genetic chemical of sexual enhancement, the other with the arousing scent of another male Drell having already laid claim on the beautiful mother. And with Feron’s affinity towards procreation, he was selectively moving through titivating ideas in his head.</p>
<p>Lana opened her mouth and looked at Feron, closing her gawp to Thane.</p>
<p>“I have eyes only for one.”</p>
<p>He grinned, still keeping his hands clasped behind him, but bending forward, he planted a kiss on her mouth and left it at that.</p>
<p>“Shall we?”</p>
<p>Quoyle stood by the door, the Archive VI attending him as he selected a set of commands. The wall behind Lana released the drawer Thane had inserted his weapons into earlier, and he detached himself from Lana’s side to go retrieve his knives and gun.</p>
<p>“A moment, please.” He turned away from them all and quickly began threading the various tools of death into his jacket, pants, belt, boots, cuffs, and wherever a liner was missing its filling.</p>
<p>Lana rolled her eyes, and bounced David a little, craning her neck to check his face and make sure he was breathing, though she could hear him snoring. Feron and Thekla stepped closer now that the atmosphere was less tense and more informal, and the cohen expressed his interest.</p>
<p>“Are they always so noisy when they sleep?”</p>
<p>“David’s always had a little snore. I hope it fades over time.”</p>
<p>Miranda walked up to Quoyle, joining him as he finished the requested confirmations through the VI, and scanned acceptance codes into his omnitool from Advent’s interface. He waved his cuff over Miranda’s, granting her permission to travel from this particular Archive chamber before moving to Lana and David, doing the same.</p>
<p>Lana realized David had an ankle cuff. She felt it with her fingers after Quoyle scanned it and looked at him with question.</p>
<p>“Everyone gets tracked on Kahje. The Hanar have a global network that follows especially our visitors that enter the Archive. We don’t want you poking around, or in his case, being wandered off with, and no one knowing.”</p>
<p>“Is that a problem here?”</p>
<p>“It has been in the past. The Hanar and Drellkind worked together to come to an agreement, an addendum to the Compact. Now everyone is tracked, but it is not limited to our species. Even the Hanar watch their own. . . Those they can get a tentacle on.”</p>
<p>“I imagine it’s hard to keep track of everyone. Especially in an ocean.”</p>
<p>“We mainly keep to the domesticated land varieties.”</p>
<p>Lana nodded and Quoyle turned to Thane.</p>
<p>“The Humans have access for further travel into Nauza. I’d advise you to contact your crew members and that Krogan who you say is wandering outside of the ship. They might be startled by who we have sent to collect them.”</p>
<p>Thane raised his omnitool and dialed the connection to his son.</p>
<p>Lana looked a little nervous. She stretched her neck and peered across Thane to Quoyle.</p>
<p>“I don’t have Wrex’s address.”</p>
<p>“I do,” Thane said. “I’ll take care of it.”</p>
<p>“Who exactly are you sending to pick them up?”</p>
<p>“An escort,” Quoyle replied with a tilt of his head. “Don’t worry. They will be delivered directly to Nauza after processing.”</p>
<p>“Processing?”</p>
<p>Thane looked up at Feron as he waited for the connection with his son to open.</p>
<p>“I hope you’re not sending the overtons.” He said this to Quoyle.</p>
<p>Quoyle furrowed his brow scales at Thane.</p>
<p>“Why do you say that?”</p>
<p>Feron bared his teeth in a shameful half-grin, rubbing the back of his crests in thought of Kalia lying unconscious on the floor of the Jehush chambers’ hall.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0114"><h2>114. Chapter 114</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Strang went into his office beside the operations room at Cronos Station. His personal workspace was shared by a dozen or more agents beneath his tutelage. Raking his hands through thick pepper dark hair, he pulled savagely at the cigarette between his lips and blew out through his nostrils. The smell of acrid smoke clung to his mustache, stained white in the corner.</p><p>“Sir?”</p><p>“What is it, Melodi?”</p><p>He turned as a pristine print from a magazine fold stepped in and docilely handed him a tablet with several images pulled from among the memories Lana had been viced of. He tucked the tablet to his armpit and gave her an expectant look, the hooked eyebrows raised with willingness to hear what she had to share. Melodi, an auburn dark-skinned woman with a raised forehead and gentle Grecian features that were wide and expressive, demurely gave him a concerned expression that sought the man’s thinking.</p><p>“Sir, are you vexed?”</p><p>“Yes and no. . . It’s not your concern, Mel. Is that all you wanted to ask me?”</p><p>“No, sir.” She shied. “I have compiled the reports for your daughter’s earlier memories. . . The ones from childhood. Would you like me to include them?”</p><p>He twitched his mustache to the right and frowned down at her. “No. . . But send them to me separately from the analysis.”</p><p>“And what of the recent memories of your grandson, David?”</p><p>“Yes, yes,” he brusquely said, waving his hand. “Send them with Lana’s childhood in a separate file.”</p><p>“I also have some personal memories between she and. . . The Drell, sir. Shall I store them for now?”</p><p>He gave her a narrowed look.</p><p>“Most assuredly, yes.”</p><p>“Very well, sir. Thane and Lana will be escorted to Hallmar’s Key. The hotel has set apart several rooms for both Miss Lana and her crew, which will be covered by Jacob. Miss Chambers will be awaiting David in the interim care center and stands by to provide assistance per missions requiring Lana’s attention. . . I presume you intend to include Lana in your plans, sir.”</p><p>“Yes, I do. I will.”</p><p>She cocked her head left and studied him for a moment. The man was clearly agitated, dwindling his cigarette to a stub as he waited for her to disembark her next question.</p><p>“Sir, does the Drell’s relations with your daughter bother you?”</p><p>He frowned, pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and gestured at her with the tip.</p><p>“What do you think, Mel? Do I look like it bothers me?” He squinted his eyes, drawing the eyebrows downward. “Is it written on my face?”</p><p>“It is,” said a woman walking by the doorframe, dressed in white as the others and Miranda Lawson had been. Everyone wore white at Cronos. It was the standard. A presentation of perfection.</p><p>“Thank you, Diana.”</p><p>He glanced to the doorway, a thin frame of steel and grey as he took a breath, missing the woman who had darted out of sight. He glanced back at Mel before turning away and stalking towards his desk, littered with papers, tablets, votives from Prothean ruins, and a collection of clocks with various faces. Among these was a picture of his daughter and David.</p><p>“Sir, we could possibly work an angle to test their relationship.” Melodi arched an eyebrow of auburn and gold highlights from the overhead lamps recessed in the ceiling above. The office was immaculate, save for the chaos on Strang’s desk. Framed photos covered the walls of future and past friends, diplomats he had ties with, ribbons and awards for service with the Alliance. For one so averse to it, Strang did not let go so easy.</p><p>“What do you mean? I’ve already made arrangements. He’ll be tested before he leaves anywhere with her. Maybe even reminded what it’s like to be with his own kind. I don’t care that he’s working for her. . . But I’ll be damned if I don’t put my best foot forward and try to stop this madness. . . All she’s known is that shit, Will, granted they’ve made a lovely grandson for me. . . She’s just confused. . . Traumatized. . . Holding onto whatever comes forward.”</p><p>“Resentful, sir?”</p><p>“Damn it, Mel.” He looked at her, tired, a father on the cusp of having been handed too much, and he had been ready to deal with everything <em>but</em> Thane and Lana. “It’s been a trying time for me. Not having her for so long, what she’s been through without me. . . Now this. . . This. . . Poor excuse for a pity party sidling in to sleep with her and. . . Just. . . Stop talking to me about it. I need a moment. Please excuse my forthcomingness. I’ve been very rude to you.”</p><p>She approached him and gave the man a sympathetic pat on the arm. He looked down into her brown eyes with a reproachful glare that softened into one of humility.</p><p>She smiled up at him. “I understand, sir. He’s not what you expected.”</p><p>Strang clamped his mouth shut.</p><p>Forcing a patient grin, he nodded with finality, and strode over to his desk to sit, flip up a digital blind to give him privacy from an open doorway, and instead of looking through the tablet with the images of the giant ship, dark and loathsome, from the angle of his daughter’s view while at Eden Prime, Strang pulled up a feed that Melodi had sent him as she left the room staring down at her omnitool.</p><p>One that featured a brown haired girl lifting her first rock with dark energy.</p><p>Her giggles filled the office and drew the curious smiles from men and women working in operations.</p><p>Strang sighed and knuckled his dark brow, sinking back into the chair as images of Lana’s memories filled the screen behind the blind above his desk. Images of him as a young father.</p><p>And suddenly, he felt very old.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0115"><h2>115. Chapter 115</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Departing the Archive chamber, Lana carried David with her to the skypod Thane and she had taken, but Quoyle shook his head and led them to a separate official pod of the cohen’s. He unlocked the doors as they neared the vehicle and Lana saw the pod inside which she identified as a carrier of sorts.</p><p>“What is that? Is that a child seat?” she observed with a squint.</p><p>Thane was impressed. “It would seem the cohen has come prepared.”</p><p>“Indeed,” Quoyle replied, bending down to adjust the harnesses up and turning back to Lana, holding his hands out for David. She didn’t hesitate this time to pass her son into the cohen’s possession.</p><p>He slipped David into the folds of the pod, covering with the harness after carefully arranging his head and limbs.</p><p>Miranda handed Lana a small syringe.</p><p>“It’s a stim. In case there’s an emergency. Put it into his arm.”</p><p>“Did you suspect there would be a problem?”</p><p>“No, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”</p><p>They both gazed down at David, secure, Quoyle having moved away after checking the buckles and harnesses. He looked to Lana, nodded, and walked around the skypod to the other door.</p><p>“He is a beautiful boy,” Miranda said, closing the door and looking at Lana, “and hopefully has his mother’s talents in leadership and energy.”</p><p>Lana gave her a suspicious look, but brushed off the feeling with the effects of the vicers.</p><p>“Lana.”</p><p>She looked to Thane, awaiting her with Feron.</p><p>Taking her arm, he guided her to the other side of the skypod, sat her inside, and closed the door behind him as he joined her in the backseat with Quoyle in the front. Feron, Miranda, and Thekla went to the skypod Thane and Feron had used to travel from the Jehush chambers.</p><p>“How are you feeling? Still well?”</p><p>Lana glanced to her right, David asleep in his seat. She turned to Thane, who had pressed his shoulder against hers.</p><p>“Still well.” She paused, considering. “You’re eyes seem brighter. Not as dark, I mean.”</p><p>Quoyle glanced in the mirror, checking his occupants in the back before setting the vehicle into motion.</p><p>Feeling the lift, Lana rested one hand on David’s chest, facing the back seats. She wondered at how the cohen had known to secure it facing rearwise.</p><p>“I have had a revealing day,” Thane said, taking care not to get to close to her ear, which was tempting him, what with the hair being tucked over it. “I gave away something I held very dear for something new. Some hope.”</p><p>She turned her face to him, raising her chin.</p><p>“Something new? Like me?”</p><p>He grinned.</p><p>The vessel shuttled forward, ascending to join traffic. The second skypod followed. Thane and Lana shared a sensitive kiss that was shy and confident at the same time. He pressed his head to her brow after, nose to nose, and closed his eyes, breathing in her scent, breathing in her child’s, and not minding that Quoyle had his eyes ahead.</p><p>Lana kept her eyes open, wondering, wondering about Stiv Kay and if Thane was feeling more alive than ever with having met what her father produced for the Drell.</p><p>“Did my father give you Stiv Kay like he said he would?”</p><p>Thane’s eyelids snapped open and he stared, leaning away.</p><p>“He told you?”</p><p>“Of course,” she said, with a slight tilt, “my father has always told me everything. Lately I haven’t enjoyed what I’ve been hearing,” she added with a mutter, then grinned, “but he said he gave you Stiv in return for keeping you attached to your MO. . . Me.”</p><p>He frowned, thinking of what the Illusive Man might have also said.</p><p>“Don’t—“</p><p>“Worry about it,” she said, cutting him off. “I think he needed you more than he admits.”</p><p>“Your father tested my patience severally. I do not agree with his method.”</p><p>“I don’t either,” she whispered, closing her eyes, inhaling. Thane watched the lashes touch down on her lower eyelids. How remarkable they were, dark and rich. He brushed one bunch of the jagged, soft tufts with his finger tip. She opened her eyes, and these never looked greener. “I couldn’t think of a better man to work for though. My father’s very capable, if somewhat of an enigma.”</p><p>“He’s a little intolerant.”</p><p>“To people he doesn’t like.”</p><p>“Does that include other species?” Thane raised his eye ridge, putting his hand down. “Mostly, I assume.”</p><p>“He’s tolerant, but he’s also a bit uptight about me. . . Seeing you.” Her breath warmed against his chin.</p><p>“I think he’s going to have to get used to me,” Thane said, dropping his mouth to hers. “What was his name, by the way?”</p><p>“You two are in for a treat,” Quoyle interrupted from the front, innocuous in that he wasn’t paying attention to the two romancing in the back. “Hallmar’s Key has quite the show going on to celebrate the impending competitions for Nyahir, the Hanar holiday. It is to be celebrated in three days’ time, but I suspect you will have been moved by then to Cerberus headquarters or somewhere. Still, you will be able to enjoy some of the buildup to the festivities of First Cresting.”</p><p>Lana pulled away from Thane, her eyes deep in his, and absently spoke out the side of her mouth, “What’s that for?”</p><p>“First Cresting Bloom, or Nyahir, is the arrival of the new disciples from the deep of the Encompassing,” Thane said, versed well in the world of his mentors and possessors. “Many new Hanar come from the deep to join those that celebrate the Enkindlers, and to pronounce their devotion to the Protheans, as they are also called.”</p><p>“Enkindlers are Protheans, Protheans are worshipped, by Hanar. And what of Drell?”</p><p>“We have our own gods,” Quoyle said, and now glanced in the mirror, “but out of respect and support for the Hanar that will control the future of our species and protect the Compact on our behalves, we celebrate with food, festivity, and dance of our own. . . The Hanar tolerate it.” He laughed.</p><p>Thane chuckled as well. He kneaded the side of his brow, looking from Quoyle to Lana beside him.</p><p>“You will have to give into one dance, Thane,” Quoyle said with a deep rumble. “How long’s it been since last you practiced?”</p><p>“A great deal of time.”</p><p>“Then you are overdue,” Quoyle jovially challenged him. He glanced in the mirror again at Lana. “You will have to push him when it is time.”</p><p>“She wouldn’t dare,” Thane said, turning his face to hers.</p><p>Lana gave him a wry grin. “What exactly do you do?”</p><p>“Aside from torturing assassins,” Quoyle said, “all Drell, and drellahna for that matter, know the Shohn.”</p><p>“It is a rapid beat, played by timos and obelias, drums and pipes. It is meant to show off one’s prowess,” he smirked.</p><p>Lana grimaced at Thane. “A bit of chauvinism in your society?”</p><p>“You’ll see.”</p><p>“If we get there in time,” Quoyle said, sitting up. “Should be some traffic going into Nauza. Officials of the Primacy have access to the city beneath Sybilla, but tickets into the entertainment venues are popular and access is given to those who pay the exorbitant fees to enjoin the celebrations. Hallmar’s Key will exclusively be holding the more traditional varieties of dance unavailable to the public.”</p><p>“Special cohen status only?” Lana said, mocking him.</p><p>Quoyle laughed again, liking her. “See it as you must, Miss Lana Shephard.”</p><p>She turned to Thane, taking his hand and kissing the fine skin of his conjoined fingers.</p><p>“Did you torture him?” she bluntly asked.</p><p>“You’re very direct,” Thane said, exhaling as his shoulders drooped. “Do you really wish to know what I did?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Then I will tell you later. As for now, I want to enjoy this. I could have lost you to those vicers,” he whispered, moving to her ear. He kept his face there, hiding his words from Quoyle’s hearing and lip-reading eyes. “I worried I would find you different.” He shifted away and studied.</p><p>The face was the same, the eyes green and bright, and her mouth tucked into a considerate pucker. He appraised her as if looking, seeking for what was changed. “You, yourself, seem more relaxed.”</p><p>“I feel lighter, now that you mention it.” She blinked. “I’ve had vicers used on me before. I don’t believe much has changed.”</p><p>“The Alliance had vicers.”</p><p>“Yes, which means they must have gotten them from Kahje.”</p><p>“Not necessarily,” Quoyle stated. “They <em>are</em> Prothean technology, which could be found elsewhere. The Hanar introduced them to Drell and we figured out how to use them to our benefit.”</p><p>“A Drell may learn how to forget with the aid of the vicers,” Thane supplied for her curious expression. “It is one of the first tools taught to a newly graduated apprentice of the Compact’s clandestine arm.”</p><p>“I was taught to forget what they were doing to me, and some of my visions from Eden Prime. . . What were you taught to forget?” Lana asked, understanding.</p><p>His jaw tensed. He would have told her, but Thane suddenly knew she would disapprove.</p><p>“I forgot what was necessary to move on.” He swallowed, half hoping she wouldn’t pry.</p><p>“That sounds mysterious. Would you tell me if you knew?”</p><p>“Would you?”</p><p>“I can’t. I can feel the gaps,” she admitted, rubbing his thumb with her other hand, thoughtful. “I know there’s something missing, but it’s like a drug. A drug I took and fell asleep with, only to wake with memories of where I was, and not where I’d been. Is that what it’s like for you?”</p><p>The skypod shifted vertically as her gaze lifted to his.</p><p>“Something similar,” he nodded, turning his hand to cup hers and squeeze. “But I much prefer letting go of the pain so I can look to the future without constantly being reminded of what I lost.”</p><p>“Did you forget Irikah?”</p><p>Thane startled. Quoyle glanced in the mirror again.</p><p>Lana nodded. “I thought as much.”</p><p>She gave him a sad look and ran her fingers through his tebris.</p><p>“You foolish Drell.”</p><p>In a sense, she was flattered. In another, she was saddened. Irikah should have never been removed from his memory, but somehow she knew that this was what Thane had done by what he left unsaid by his words.</p><p>“Lana, I have had many good memories with my wife. Her body haunts my mind, and I need to let go. . . but a Drell’s memory holds on. . . Kolyat appreciates this as much as I.”</p><p>She turned away, glanced at David, felt his silk brow.</p><p>“Promise you won’t do it again.”</p><p>“I have nothing left to erase.” He nudged her. “I want to remember everything but the sadness.” He brought her chin back to him, leaning forward. “I want to remember you. All of you. And that means David, Kolyat, me and you.”</p><p>“You barely know my boy.”</p><p>“He is a part of you. . . I know who he will be already.”</p><p>She grinned for the optimism in his words.</p><p>The skypod slowed and fell into a rhythm of passing other skypods meant for the city beneath the sea. Lana’s eyes went passed Thane to his window, and expanding from her view was the wide, vibrant world of Nauza as the pyrotube led them out to an intravenous circuit that followed its perimeter. Lana wished David were awake to experience this. The sights were glorious, for they spoke of an echo of a legend, Atlantis, with racing schools of Hanar and aquatic extraordinaries through the glass-algae tunnel they were shielded in. Lana saw the skypods alongside theirs, dark and tinted so that none within could be seen. The prismatic waves of the sky through the water faded into slants that barely nicked the towers of Nauza’s Hanar city.</p><p>“This is a Drell holly,” Quoyle said, as they turned down a connecting tube towards a domed city among the pillars of organic architecture experienced through Lana’s eyes in the water of Sybilla. Lana stretched her neck to see more, and Thane settled back against his seat, letting his gaze leave Lana’s shoulder to go with her to what she was seeing, to guess at what awed her.</p><p>“I’ve always wanted to see life under water,” she murmured. “Now I’m on Kahje, beneath a sea I’ve never heard of. You’d think I’d experience it on Earth first, but this. . . This is fine.”</p><p>She smiled, finally feeling free, if only for a short time.</p><p>Thane ran his fingers under her shirt on her waist, hidden out of view, and she closed her eyes, indulging in one moment, to close off the bright beauty of swirling architecture and its lovely bioluminescence. Thane wanted her so much right then, his lips parted in a soft, breathless sigh. The skin of her filled him.</p><p>Lana opened both eyes as his hand slipped downwards, the same time lights and décor meant for a festive occasion could be seen glittering ahead as Quoyle exited the tunnel. He guided the vehicle down towards a hallmark of the holosphere under water, preferring the sureness of his grip as he took the steering.</p><p>Thane’s finger rubbed along the inside of her pants, coquettishly playing at the most sensitive spot above her rear and sliding further. She looked in alarm at him and saw the intensity there in his stare, the will behind his expression.</p><p>“Take it easy back there,” Quoyle deliberately interrupted. “You don’t have the privacy just yet. Wait for the Key. I think David should be taken care of first as well,” he chuckled.</p><p>Lana backed into her seat and laid her head on Thane’s shoulder as he resigned himself to putting his arm around her.</p><p>“Later,” she whispered to his teness.</p><p>“I’ll hold you to it.”</p>
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<a name="section0116"><h2>116. Chapter 116</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The peer through a doorway left Strang and his wife in the frame of the display.</p><p>“I’m going.”</p><p>“Martha, I don’t think you should.”</p><p>“If I do it, someone else might not. . . Layn?”</p><p>The visual shifted suddenly as Lana, who had been watching as a child, ran away from the call of her mother, skirting wildly down a hall in their house on Mindoir.</p><p>Strang turned off the kella, moving his gaze to the tablet on his desk by his hand. Picking this up, he scrutinized the images that came to life in the separate panels on screen, which lit at his disturbance of the motion sensor.</p><p>Lana had found what he was looking for. She had stared straight at it.</p><p>
  <em>A Reaper.</em>
</p><p>It was just as in the pictures, both what his reconnaissance had documented and what Lana had scrawled in the pictures she had drawn, that he had obtained from her secret files through Project Foundation, Miranda’s help.</p><p>The Reaper was a ship. The ship itself was a mile and a half high, he guessed, and where, where did one enter it? There were truncheon legs that seemed to pinch in an orderly fashion, two more towards its top pointed half spearing the sky it disappeared through, which was something, what with seeing how large it was to Lana’s vision.</p><p>
  <em>Where does a ship that size hide?</em>
</p><p>He knew that there was some hope, if he found the ship, he might find his wife.</p><p>Years ago, she had embarked on a personal invitation to some Prothean planet, something ringed in secrecy by the Asari Republic. He grit his teeth at the idea of those blue matriarchs enticing his wife away with promise of keeping the research and bringing it back to be published by whatever scientific bodies Humanity beckoned Martha with at the time.</p><p>And with Martha, of course, his hopes for reestablishing their fractured marriage was also gone.</p><p>He hated Aliens. Could use them, find them suitable for his needs, but reckoned they were as selfish as Humanity, and swore never to rely on them.</p><p>But his antagonism was misdirected.</p><p>He sighed, moving the panels around in a circle, zooming in on the legs of the ship, gauging one’s circumference to be large enough to fit a city and a half of its outer limits. It vaguely made him think of the Misrephoth-Maim and what that was all about. A colonizer for a new government in the future of Humanity, already lost some believed. Balling up his fingers, he pressed his middle knuckle of his index to his upper lip and thought, <em>If I had to hide a ship that was miles tall as well as wide, where would I stuff the damn thing? An ocean? A canyon? Behind a planet?</em></p><p>He gazed about his office, the walls round and smooth save for his picture frames and plaques. The door beyond his desk framed several of his operatives discussing more of Lana’s memories and moving them onto large suspended screens of glass, allocating to new folders. Cronos Station itself was hidden in the glare of a red dying star, a giant that would last for centuries before anyone should have to worry about relocating the big space station. He had his own city to run, his own army of Cerberus, waiting, working, reconciling themselves to what they learned of what lay ahead for them.</p><p>The Turians would be first to go for what they’d done in the Contact Wars. Then he would handle the Asari. The Volus possibly could be kept around as they were useful as a world of shrewd recordkeepers and financiers, but the tribes were underhanded, also weak to defend themselves without Turian assistance.</p><p>Killing Saren might spark a war between Humanity and the Turians that he needed, but if he could gather Saren’s tools to his use, he may be able to dominate the Turians’ chances of fighting back and succeeding. First, however, he needed to disrupt the alliance between Humanity and the Turian Hierarchy, and then he could go after the richer wealths of politics and posterity.</p><p>
  <em>Lana.</em>
</p><p>What he would do with her?</p><p>“Get me Udina, please, EDI.”</p><p>His com activated, pulling up the Human’s contact details and submitting these to his operators handling the tracking of public officials.</p><p>A slightly annoyed voice answered his operators, and Strang acidly smiled as he heard the diplomat’s sudden exchange of tones when one operator announced that she was contacting him on behalf of their employer. Cerberus.</p>
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<a name="section0117"><h2>117. Chapter 117</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The skypod descended to the roof of a high hotel, what Lana understood Quoyle to refer to as a key, pronounced ‘kay’. The roofline was ringed in light of organic quality, looming the edges before an entrance into a lift that would take them down into the key itself.</p><p>“This is a little strange, what with getting used to all the lifts I take going down instead of up,” Lana said as she figured out the harness system of the child’s pod David was in and carried him to her shoulder. The boy stirred, fussed his face and stretched his fingers, but after giving her a sleepy look, curled his head back into her neck.</p><p>“We’re in an ocean. What do you expect?” Quoyle asked, pleasantly abrading her. He closed the door behind Lana as she followed Thane to the key’s entrance. Just as Quoyle locked his skypod, the second one traveling with Miranda, Feron, and Thekla alighted and parked. The gleaming black vehicle dispersed of its passengers. Feron blew out his lips and rubbed his eyes, dramatically shaking his head as Miranda closed the door and headed to meet Lana and David.</p><p>“Did he wake at all?”</p><p>“He gave me the sleepy eyes, then went back to it,” Lana said to the woman. “Can I ask you something?”</p><p>Miranda expectantly halted, but Thane intervened, having an idea what Lana was going to say regarding William Clarke.</p><p>“Let’s save the questioning for until after we find our waiting quarters. Miss Lawson, if you will?”</p><p>Lana almost gave him a sour look for spoiling her fun, and Thane raised his eye ridges at her.</p><p>“I’d like to see my son before you decide to annoy our escort, who’s in charge of having him brought to the key.”</p><p>Miranda had gone in through the doors. Lana looked after the brunette then at Thane’s face as Feron and Thekla went in too.</p><p>“You’re no fun.” She stuck out her tongue.</p><p>“I resent that statement,” he teased. “I’m very fun, given the right conditions.”</p><p>“Are you going to join the festivities Quoyle was talking about?” she asked over her shoulder as he held the door for her and David.</p><p>“I’m going to be right here with you.”</p><p>The door closed behind him. Lana looked about as they all herded into a lift lit yellow with panels lining it cyclically. She found it surprisingly droll.</p><p>“This looks very unfancy. After everything I’ve seen, I would have expected something a little more polished for a hotel.”</p><p>“Key,” Quoyle corrected.</p><p>“Not everything down here is made with molten lava or Prothean technology,” Feron said, giving Lana a disapproving look as Thekla gazed on. “Lots of the materials had to be taken from Rakhana in the big migration. Hanar don’t like wastage or exploitation of Kahje’s resources.”</p><p>“Something Drell very much abused on our own homeworld,” Thane added, elbowing her, but careful not to disturb David. “I didn’t realize you were so spoiled,” he murmured, again teasing her.</p><p>She leaned him back, swaying as the lift descended and her stomach felt a bit queasy. “Excuse me. I’m a woman with refined taste when you peel away the outer layers.”</p><p>Thane grinned, thinking he would hold her to that too.</p><p>“Lana,” Miranda said, “we have provided a caretaker for David for while you must sleep or meet with the Illusive Man. Plans will start to move forward, finally that you are here. You may not be able to take David with you on the assignments your father will have for you and your. . . Crew,” she said with a glance at Thane.</p><p>“Am I going to hear from him in the hour?” she asked.</p><p>“Illusive Man and his team are in review of your memories pertaining to Eden Prime. He believes you have found something that remained in your memory even after the Alliance treated you with the first vice. I’m fairly certain he will be sending you after it.”</p><p>“Depending on the job, I might have to restock my ship and my crew, not to mention I have a little side assignment of my own.”</p><p>Miranda raised her brow. “Really? And what would that be related to?”</p><p>Thane gave Lana a disapproving scowl.</p><p>“Oh, just an errand for one of my crew.”</p><p>She changed the subject by offering Feron a chance to hold David, who was only too willing. Miranda glanced at Thane, who looked away to appear disinterested in answering any questions.</p><p>“You will want to consider realigning your ‘errands’ with the Illusive Man’s intentions, Lana,” Miranda remarked as the lift slowed. “From hereon out, possible new benefits from your previous plans should be considered in whether they will help you to achieve Saren or your father’s purpose leading Cerberus. . . You <em>are</em> the official nepotistic inheritor of his ideas now, you know.”</p><p>“No, I don’t know,” Lana cut, flicking her hair as she sharply faced Miranda’s words. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since. . . Since Torfan.”</p><p>The way in which her voice immediately hushed caught Thane’s attention. He studied her with a new interest.</p><p>Lana took David from Feron, trying to console herself against the idea that she was like Stiv Kay, a hired hitman used by Batarians to exact pain on a threat’s weakness. She thought of all those rebels she’d killed.</p><p>“I’m just here to stop Saren. Maybe kill a few other people in the process,” she vaguely muttered.</p><p>Miranda held an annoyed expression. Thane hoped the woman had the sense not to get into an argument with Lana right then and there about her father’s beliefs, which he himself didn’t get the feeling were altogether too positive, particularly with regard to their relationship.</p><p>The lift doors opened and a row of doors on their right could be seen facing a window that spanned the breadth of what Lana could guess was about five ‘stories’ from the seabed, which was more a hollowed out plaza decked with flowers and lamps aglow with light and merrymaking on the designed pathways coming to and from the hotel. Lana tightened her grip on David as she leaned forward over a railing to see beyond the glass set out from the balcony and curving this façade of the key, gazing down onto the heads of numerous Drell, among them mingling several crests of Hanar as many drank, cheered, and clapped on a lively dance in the middle of the plaza.</p><p>“I so want to go down there,” Lana said, infected with the bug of festive celebration. They could even hear the music near through the glass, Thane easily detecting the familiar call of timos and obelias played by hands and rhythm. “What are they doing?”</p><p>Quoyle expansively grinned. “They are celebrating. Look, the drellahna are challenging the males to compete.”</p><p>An eclectic mix of Drell wearing varieties of civil wear, from what Lana took to be professional clothing to more scanty and relaxed, were thronged throughout the dance plain and a number of shoulders and arms raised as the bodies moved in coordinated chaos. And then she could see the drellahna, who were breathtaking and exotic for a species’s gender she rarely saw much of, if ever. The closest she had seen was the image cast by Dae’s apparatus, the one that had startled Thane.</p><p>They were wide eyed and wide grinned, dancing in a throng that weaved and undulated. Lana could not see their feet, but she imagined these were moving somehow, and by the expressions of happiness and fervor on their faces, there was hard work afoot, literally. Off a ways could be seen more color coming down an avenue of colored bricks, as more festively garbed dancers arrived on scene, spilling in with mock disarray.</p><p>A great cheer went up at their arrival.</p><p>“Only the Hallmar’s Key hosts the dances,” Quoyle said, nodding to Lana, “and you will see why if you stick around.”</p><p>“We should get to the room,” Miranda said, watching Lana who was transfixed by the colorful display of clothing, crests, Drell tebris, faces, and arms. Some were shirtless, whipping their garb in helicopter circles above their heads like winding string. The beat had Feron near thumping his chest as he turned and took the lead from Miranda, guiding everyone to a room four doors into the level.</p><p>Miranda disengaged the lock with her omnitool, the code Quoyle had given her, and went inside first. She turned an invited Lana in.</p><p>As Lana entered with David in her arms, Thane was to follow, but found the door quickly closed before his face.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0118"><h2>118. Chapter 118</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The yellow surface of the door was fairly smooth with small pocks of the brush used to paint it, and halfway up from the floor was a black glass with what Thane knew to possess a sensor inside. Standing before it and looking down at it, he hid the flush in his patak and tebris from Quoyle, Feron, and Thekla waiting to see how he would react.</p><p>His eyes were squinted ahead as he considered this, and relaxed open as he turned right to Feron, who was against the rail, his arms and ankles crossed as he leaned on it.</p><p>“Feron, does a thief always walk with his lock accelerator?”</p><p>Feron cast Thekla and Quoyle a sly glance before he leaned forward the rail, opened his left jacket panel, and reached in with his right hand to remove a small black tube that he passed across the hall to Thane.</p><p>While Thane returned to the door with the tube, Thekla and Quoyle both continued to look peeringly at Feron who slid his hands into his back pockets, shifting his coat back with his wrists. He shrugged at Quoyle’s shake of head. “What?”</p><p> </p><p>“Now, Lana,” Miranda said as she walked further into the room. It was yellow like the outside and no windows were in the main entrance area. Lana hoped she wouldn’t be staying long as Miranda went to the next doorway and pressed her hand to the frame, opening yet another panel a little taller than she. “You will meet Kelly Chambers this way. There is a changing area for you to put on less conspicuous clothes.”</p><p>“Are they white like yours? Because that’s not very inconspicuous.”</p><p>Miranda’s delicately arched eyebrows bent towards the middle. “The Hanar seem fine with it, but for you, some performance gear. Your father let us make some guesses on your size.”</p><p>“And shoewear?”</p><p>“You can keep what you have for now, but we’ve been working on a few prototypes for you.” She smiled, and then her eyes widened as the door behind Lana opened, revealing Thane.</p><p>He passed Feron’s tool back to the Drell, stepped in, grinning at Lana with triumph, who greeted him with her own smile and then looked to Miranda.</p><p>Quietly exhaling through her nose, Miranda gestured with a flourish of her right hand to the doorway she stood by.</p><p>“Feel free to join us, Thane, Feron, Quoyle, and Thekla.”</p><p>“We’ll stay out here,” Quoyle responded, detecting the low treble in Miranda’s voice, significant of her vexation. The door sealed over his façade, cutting off Thane, Lana, David, and Miranda.</p><p>“Very well. Come on. Kelly?” Miranda called into the next room.</p><p>A pert voice greeted them as Lana entered with David, not noticing Thane and Miranda’s exchange of pointed glares at each other. She was caught by a bubbling and vivacious red haired woman. Kelly Chambers turned from a long, wide bureau to see and greet her visitors with green eyes and a vivid smile, wearing a similar all-white uniform as Miranda.</p><p>“Hi, I’m Kelly! I’ll be your new yeoman—which is like a secretary admin, but I perform psychological eval, counseling, periodic assessments of crew, and, of course, educate David while you’re on assignment!”</p><p>“Wow—I think we’ll have to discuss that first.”</p><p>Lana’s response made Kelly worry she had just overwhelmed the commander.</p><p>“I also perform marriage counseling and sexual therapy. Is that a boon?”</p><p>Lana’s jaw dropped as she backed into Thane, who reflexively caught her waist in a very plainly obvious show of knowing one too well. The importance of his reaction was not lost to Kelly’s quick and perceptive eyes. She was delighted.</p><p>“Oh, good! I see you’ve found a replacement sexually since your marriage—And he’s Alien! How open-minded and experimental of you!”</p><p>Thane’s eye ridges could have raised higher if possible. Lana made a little noise in her throat as the red head swirled and whisked towards a bed laid out with not only Lana’s new change of clothing (there was a set of white uniform available for her), but a change for David as well. Plus a smaller white uniform.</p><p>Lana shook her head. <em>Oh, hell no.</em></p><p>“I don’t have to put those on him, do I?” she asked, pointing at the white apparel.</p><p>Kelly instantly chirped in answer. She had the energy of a bird, spry and quick. “You can put on the regular wear, but the Hanar like the white as it stands out to them if we go among the crowds. They are very sensitive about who’s visiting. If we’re not tagged and chained, which they don’t do,” she giggled, and her eyes widened, “they would like us to be easily found.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Lana said, cocking her brow so that her hair fell over the side of David’s cheek, “I’m not big on standing out. Kind of makes me a target.”</p><p>“I see. Well, there is an alternate set of clothing. Can I take him while you get dressed?”</p><p>Prompting Lana with an open set of freckled hands, Lana agreed and handed David into Kelly’s care. She walked farther into the room and picked up the first pair of underwear she saw, then looked at Thane.</p><p>“Do you need help, madame?”</p><p>Miranda contained a snort and left the room to wait outside. Kelly rocked and swayed with David in her arms, eyes glued to the little boy’s sleeping face.</p><p>“Have you considered what you’re going to tell him when he realizes he’s not looking like the father?”</p><p>Lana flushed red in her cheeks and looked away from Thane to Kelly.</p><p>“I haven’t—“</p><p>“We’ll have to talk about it during a session sometime. I’m sure David will be very curious to know why his mother chose to sleep with a Drell instead of his actual father.” Kelly looked up mischievously from David’s face, and Lana saw the more mature aspect of intelligence in the woman.</p><p>Lana gazed back at the bed, laid out with her clothing. She was going to have to put a leash on the woman’s mouth. . . Though inwardly, she resented the fact that what Kelly was straight to the pointing out of was necessary and important.</p><p>“I think I’m going to get dressed.”</p><p>Before Thane could even blink, Kelly was out of the room with David and his clothing.</p><p>“I can change him!” Lana called.</p><p>Kelly stopped, turned, and obediently gave David back to Lana. She then stood, waiting.</p><p>“Lana, if I am to care for him, you must be able to trust me,” she said to Lana’s expression, which clearly suggested she leave.</p><p><em>She’s right. . . Again</em>, Lana grudgingly admitted.</p><p>While she showed Kelly how to dress her son, and the small mannerisms Lana paid to see that Kelly treated him with respect as he was dressed and his diaper found soiled, Thane checked his omnitool for messages from Kolyat and even Wrex.</p><p>“It seems they have not found Wrex yet,” Thane remarked as he read a different message from Cerberus itself. He couldn’t tell if it was from the Illusive Man or someone working for him. He then scrolled for any alerts from his son, and finding none, thought he saw one from Tali, but glanced up at the smell permeating the room.</p><p>Lana had handed off a diaper to Kelly, who placed it into a bag and stored this in a container she brought up from beside the bed.</p><p>“You’re very diligent about preserving his samples,” Thane said.</p><p>Kelly gave him a wry look. “We’ll be taking it back to the labs on ship to analyze and make sure he’s processing all of the sedative out of his system. Plus, he will receive a full screen for his nutritional analysis and dark energy presence.”</p><p>“You think it would be detectable in one so young?” Lana asked.</p><p>“Dark energy has been present in children as young as eleven months,” Kelly shared, raising Lana’s eyes from cleaning David.</p><p>She glanced at Thane, recalling ‘Jack’ who was currently believed to be with Kaidan Alenko aboard the <em>Normandy</em>.</p><p>Finalizing the wrap of the new diaper, Lana gently dressed David in socks, an undershirt, a top that was white since she didn’t mind him standing out when he would be around by so many, and zipped up the lining just to his sternum. He breathed in and snuffled, still sleeping with the effects of the sedative.</p><p>“Pants, please.”</p><p>Lana went through the ritual she was used to, and it gave her some sense of normalcy, albeit a two year old one that she had adopted. When David was fully dressed, she let Kelly pick up her son and lead her around a corner of the bedroom to a nook occupied by a shallow cradle that was low to the floor.</p><p>“A cotovatre,” Thane said, craning around the corner to see where they had gone. He had memories of Kolyat’s own in his former cottus with Irikah, when she was alive.</p><p>She was not entirely gone from him, and he was content with what he did remember.</p><p>Lana kissed David after tucking him tight with a sheer blanket as smooth and yet as rough as a comfortable silk. She rubbed it between her fingers as Kelly settled back on her knees, having knelt to observe Lana as she tended to the final adjustments of her son.</p><p>“You have a very tender relationship,” Kelly said, glancing at Lana’s green eyes, noting the similarity between mother and child.</p><p>“We do, I think.” She let her hand rest on David’s chest, feeling him warm and alive under her palm. “He was <em>my</em> only hope when I was on Earth.”</p><p>Kelly said nothing, but made another mental note.</p><p>Rising from the floor, Lana’s lingering gaze on her son went to Thane’s. He stepped back to let her pass. Thane glanced at Kelly, who smiled, tight-lipped, as she knelt like a guardian at David’s head.</p><p>“You can assure her we will not let anything happen to David. He is as important to the Illusive Man and the future of Humanity as Lana is.”</p><p>Thane kept his face expressionless, but nodded. He could not help but feel some unease at her words.</p><p>Kelly arose to give them privacy. She did not need to be watching David while Lana was in the room. The bedroom door slid closed just as Kelly’s unmitigated personality began to converse with Miranda outside.</p><p>Thane walked to Lana who was slipping out of her clothes. He gently pushed her down onto the bed and stroked the scar along her right arm.</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>She looked into his eyes as he angled his head towards the door.</p><p>“She seems to be more tolerant than your father or Miranda.”</p><p>“Yeah, but she’ll be a viper like the rest, I’m sure. We should be careful.”</p><p>He nodded. “Cerberus is different from what I expected.”</p><p>She looped her hands over his crest, stroking the smooth band of black skin from beside the abbreviated row of raised ridges along the top of his crown and nape of his neck.</p><p>“Yeah, and I had no idea my father was in charge.”</p><p>“That must have been enlightening for you,” he said, tickling the skin beneath her breast. Lana hummed with his pleasuring.</p><p>“This day has been particularly enlightening, but so has this. . . Adventure?” She turned her face to the corner, behind which David slept. “And who knew I’d be together with him again?” Thane watched her features turn back to him, looking down at her nose, the lips of her mouth.</p><p>“I will stay with David if you wish me to.” He acknowledged an unspoken anxiety for her.</p><p>Lana grinned. “Somehow I feel they <em>will</em> take good care of him, but I’m more concerned for you.”</p><p>“Hmm, I see.” He wet his upper lip. “I will take care, and I will be here, no matter what they try.”</p><p>They nuzzled together, breaking into smiles as they pressed close, enjoying the feel of vulnerable, wholesome oneness.</p><p>“I’m afraid this is not the place or the right time yet,” Thane said, quelling the deepening in his thirst for her.</p><p>His hand was hot on her shoulder, warming on her ribs. He brushed the underside of her breast with a thumb as she laid away from him. Her eyes traveled the channels between the scales of his lips and jaw.</p><p>“You’re not going to have any second thoughts if we get outside to that celebration this place is crawling with?” She became very serious. “I think it’s very important that you go outside and be among other Drell.”</p><p>He frowned. “Lana, truly, I want to be with you.”</p><p>“Yeah, we’ll see when you go outside and have all those pretty species among yours shaking sense into you.”</p><p>He leaned away from her. “Why are you trying to push me off? What have I done?”</p><p>She leaned up on her elbows, forcing him to roll off to the side, but trapping her still between his hands either way of her waist. The throb in his pants sent an electrified signal, seeing her in just a bra with the underside lifting up from being a bit too snug for what it held. <em>How can she think I’m not interested in her. . . I can barely control my response, even if she is Human.</em></p><p>“I just want to point out the obvious.”</p><p>“What—like that woman Chambers did?”</p><p>“Well, it’s a valid point. You’re Drell, I’m Human, David’s Human last I checked. . . And Cerberus is. . .”</p><p>“Human,” he repeated, rolling his eyes and settling his gaze on hers beneath. He cupped the left side of her face and tilted her up towards him. “I may be Drell, but I am fully conscious of who it is I am looking at, and who I want to be with. I think I love you, Lana.” He bit his lip, dragging teeth over the lower fullness, hoping his words did not have the adverse effect on her. “I respond to you as if you were a female of my species, and I just feel it is right. . . Irikah opened my mind. Let it continue to open as it is doing so with you.”</p><p>“That is so sweet,” she said, nearly cooing as she cupped his hand with hers, shifting with her roll off her left elbow. Her twist beneath him allowed her hair to fall more to the side and she pushed it the rest of the way to the opposite shoulder, exposing her neck for him to devour. But as he closed his mouth over the muscle, “. . . I want you to be sure you want yourself and Kolyat to deal with this. Cerberus, that is.” She could feel him stiffen and groan, perplexed by her persistence, though she, too, was making completely valid points. He would be insensitive to ignore them. “It would make things very difficult if Kolyat wasn’t on board with your decision, Thane. So when he gets here, go outside, enjoy yourself, and come tell me afterwards if you really want to stay.” <em>With me and David.</em> She gave him a sincere look. “I know if you love me, I can let you go do this, and you will come back. . . I would never want to bridle someone into love when love is something so free and wild as the wind itself.”</p><p>And truer words had never been spoken.</p><p>Lana gazed into his eyes. Leaning forward, pressing upward, she touched his patak and kissed him slow, meaningfully.</p><p>Thane shifted aside to let her out as she rolled from under him and proceeded to stand, casting him a tender look as she took her clothes and made for the bathroom. He stared after her.</p><p>He hoped she was not listening to the insidious observations of her new Human colleagues. . . And Lana hoped he would come back to her after going out to be with his kind.</p><p>But before the door closed, Thane’s hand was at the edge, pushing it open.</p><p>He stood in the doorway, watching her undress. Pulling off her pants, stretching down to remove her socks and underwear, lifting to set these on the counter and then pull off her bra. He swallowed and went to her as her eyes glanced at him in the cool reflection of a groggy mirror that only sharpened one’s view of his or herself upon closer proximity.</p><p>“You’re serious,” he said, holding her against him, searching her eyes. His brow scales flexed in worry.</p><p>“Please do this for me, Thane. I don’t know where I’m going anymore, and my father is a stubborn man. I—“ She refrained from speaking the words, not wanting to tie him to her. He had already done so much, and she <em>did</em> love him, but she also knew she needed to let him go and be reminded who he was.</p><p>It was the least she could do, for Irikah’s sake, for the widowed husband.</p><p>Thane didn’t move, only feeling slightly betrayed by her insistence that he leave. After all he’d done, to be turned away now, to be given an open window and to fly.</p><p>He moved his face closer to hers, seeking for any hesitation in her eyes.</p><p>She was resolved that this was the way to go.</p><p>“I will be back,” he said. “<em>Don’t</em> leave without me.”</p><p>He attempted to kiss her, but Lana turned her cheek.</p><p>Letting go slow and easy, he let his eyes linger on the profile of her face, the turned cheek. He clenched his fists at the thought of what Strang was doing, and yet the man was doing nothing. It was Lana trying to teach herself what she knew of love, and having been imprisoned by a man who did not love her but forced himself on her, Lana was building her own path of education and would not force anyone to have to follow.</p><p>“I <em>will</em> be back.”</p><p>He turned, his coat whipping in his haste to hide his hurt as he left the bathroom. He glanced at David’s cotovatre as he passed to the bedroom door. It slid open at the touch of his palm.</p><p>Miranda and Kelly were leaning against the wall to the left of his exit as Thane came through, pausing in their conversation to see him walk over to them, glowering at both.</p><p>“I have been dismissed to collect my son and take a breath. I will return,” he emphasized with a tilt of his brow downward, eyes fixating on Miranda’s, “and when I do, if I find anything has happened to them, I will hunt down Cerberus, man and woman.” It was preposterous of him to say, as he had no reason to be angry with Miranda or the father, but with Lana’s decision being hers and hers alone, he was floundering inside. The culling of the memory of his wife became bitter, but that had been <em>his</em> decision and his decision alone.</p><p>He needed to speak to Kolyat.</p><p>“Where is my son? And are the others coming?”</p><p>Miranda checked her omnitool and glanced at him.</p><p>“Looks like your crew has left the Villetta, and I assume your son is with them. As for the Krogan,” she added unhelpfully, “we are still looking.”</p><p>Thane nodded, and stiffly added a ‘thank you’. He also added before he turned from them, “If I come here and I find <em>no one</em>—mark me, I eventually <em>will</em> find <em>everyone</em>.”</p><p>With that, he swirled about, went to the main door, opened and let it hiss closed behind him. The two women looked at each other, appalled.</p><p>Feron and Quoyle, with Thekla, were propped against the railing to observe the dancing and festivities on the plaza of Hallmar’s Key. They turned at his arrival.</p><p>“Where you going?” Feron asked as Thane marched down the hall passed them.</p><p>Quoyle nodded to Thekla, and left him to guard the room while he went after Thane and Feron.</p><p>“I am going to find myself,” Thane answered, “per my woman’s request.”</p><p>He said nothing else as they entered the lift together and Thane directed the descent of the lift to the bottom plaza level. He had a knot in the back of his neck that needed working on, but realized it was his own anxiety.</p><p>Anxiety at what he might realize amidst the throngs of Drell shouting and dancing outside and below.</p><p> </p><p>Having dressed, Lana sat in the nook with David, thoughtfully stroking his hair and thinking about the decision she was forcing on Thane. Was it entirely fair of her? No, but their paths were about to change, and she wanted to give Thane a chance to carry on without her and David. She bit her knuckle and bent her neck backwards to bump skull against the wall. She closed her eyes to rest and deal with her own anxiety. A wave of nausea moved through her gut, into her chest, and expanded down through her arms and hands.</p>
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<a name="section0119"><h2>119. Chapter 119</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The little dolls in the shop window lined glass shelves, smiling out at passers by in the streets. Several were glowing Hanar that muted their colors only to change into different shades of pearl and pink. They were high-end quality, the hands of their makers taking painstaking efforts to tie every tentacle into perfectly seamless lengths trailing from the bells of the plush bodies, carefully hidden inside the technology of small light boxes meant to be kept away from children’s fingers.</p><p>There were two that stood out to Wrex, standing beyond the shelving and glass on which was etched ‘Thamyris Collections’ in Rakhic characters by a controlled laser through the front of the window.</p><p>He pointed a thick, red claw at the two Hanar dolls glowing from pink to white and pearl.</p><p>“Those two. I’ll pay you the top price for them as we agreed.”</p><p>The Drell behind the counter chuckled, turned, and extended his red arms bathed in black and mottled brown to the dolls above him. He pulled them from their perches and handed these to the Krogan wearing beaten battle gear. He paused just before Wrex could take them, however.</p><p>The Krogan’s red glare hardened.</p><p>“Are these for you or for a friend?” the Drell asked, inquisitively narrowing his black eyes.</p><p>“A friend.”</p><p>The Krogan waited as the Drell turned away after setting both dolls down, their tentacles quietly spreading over the glass countertop.</p><p>He bent down, rustled through paper, and returned to the countertop a small box template, some thread of ribbon, red and blue, and began to assemble the thick stock into something that would house the two dolls.</p><p>“Maybe without the ribbon,” Wrex rumbled, warily eyeing the colorful strips with some apprehension.</p><p>The Drell stared at him.</p><p>“It might attract the wrong attention.”</p><p>With a nod, he removed the ribbon and set it on the shelf behind him.</p><p>The dolls were placed side by side on tissue that was colorful, red and blue as the ribbon, and the lid formed into its blends and sealed inside the box by a strip of gel revealed with the pull of paper.</p><p>He handed the box to Wrex, but didn’t let go as the Krogan raised his claws to take hold of it.</p><p>“A child?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Wrex reluctantly grumbled.</p><p>The Drell took out a small card and slipped this inside a part in the lid. “A certificate that states these are one of a kind collector’s items and should be handled with care to preserve them for your future generations,” the Drell optimistically explained.</p><p>Wrex bitterly grinned. <em>Yeah, if we survive the Genophage,</em> he thought.</p><p>Taking the box under arm, he held his omnitool out to the Drell and scanned in payment to a small handheld kiosk. The Drell ran the transaction through and provided Wrex with an electronic receipt, bid him thanks for reaching out with the interest in the collectibles, and gave him a goodbye bow in which he also touched his left shoulder and brow scale.</p><p>“Say,” Wrex rumbled, “what does that mean anyway? I’ve seen other Drell do it to each other.”</p><p>The Drell smiled and said nothing but, “A greeting, and go in peace.” He touched the pentagonal scale on his forehead again and offered his fingers away towards Wrex.</p><p>Wrex grunted, dipped his chin, and turned for the door. His red eyes narrowed.</p><p>“You expecting visitors?”</p><p>The Drell turned and peered through the characters etched into the window face.</p><p>“Oh my. . . Overtons. . . I hope you’ve done nothing wrong.”</p><p>“Get down when and if I tell you to,” Wrex warned, the skin beneath his chin expanding with an inflating hiss.</p><p>He pulled down his helmet, tucked into the armor above his hump, and the lens glowed bright red. Pulling out his sidearm, a frightening pistol only meant to be wielded by one such as Wrex, he checked the shopkeep, who was staring at him in alarm.</p><p>Wrex took one last look around the meticulously cared-for shop, made of glass and fragiles, among which were the priceless dolls and collectibles meant as gifts for children.</p><p>He rumbled, a half-hearted sigh, and put away his sidearm.</p><p>Cradling the box with the hidden dolls in the crook of his right arm, Wrex exhaled through his thin nostrils and pushed back his helmet into its slot, then reached for the door.</p>
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<a name="section0120"><h2>120. Chapter 120</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I want Lana Shephard reported dead. Label it a suicide. Something. But make sure the Council buys in and the Alliance receives news first.”</p><p>The voice on the other end had a slight high-pitched accent that still managed to sound gruff and authoritative. “And what would that accomplish, sir? You realize they will want proof.”</p><p>“Tell her they want proof, they’ll need to ask a certain Turian who raided the home of Lana Clarke on October 4, 2186.” He flicked through the next images of Lana’s memory shots, observing her toss of the Star of Terra medallion into the fire of the ravine. “You go to Berisley, Virginia and travel into the woods, you will find the remnants of at least six Turians and a Star of Terra medal. You can say there was a gunfight, a chase, an accident, whatever, but it must place blame on the Turians for her death.”</p><p>“You are going to start a controversy, sir. Anti-sentiment will grow against the Turian Hierarchs, and we are still recovering from First Contact within many hearts and minds.”</p><p>“We are fanning the flames, Donnel,” Strang purred, “and the Turians will be willing to give up what I want in return for their continued peace along the Traverse.”</p><p>“And what is it <em>you</em> want, sir? Saren?”</p><p>“I want a ship. A ship that Saren knows. I have evidence this ship has been receiving visitors from the colonies being removed by the Misrephoth-Maim. I <em>want</em> it, and if the Turians want their peace with Humanity, they will give us its location, or I will wage a war against Palaven unlike any other they have known.”</p><p>“It will be hard to get buy-in from the Councilors. Someone has delivered data with a recording, a recording that implicates Saren already. . . With another Asari. I think Martha may have been involved, too, but I can’t—“</p><p>“We’ll get her back, and with her, Donnel, you will get a beacon unlike no other. It will raise us against these threats, and you will achieve, at least in the start, a seat on the Council, then an arm of rule. I guarantee it. From there, we show the rest of the galaxy they cannot exist without Humanity, and Humans will unite under Shephard.”</p><p>“Yes. . . sir.”</p><p>Udina’s voice was wary. Strang could hear it in his tone and hesitation.</p><p>“Are you having doubts about your loyalty, Donnel? Need I remind you of the affair with my wife and what I will do if you displease me?”</p><p>“No, sir.”</p><p>Donnel Udina swallowed and hung up the line when the sound of the Illusive Man’s voice, dubbed and unbeknownst to him, finalized the call with the end of running minutes on his holo display. He kneaded his brow as another man did the same across space, and peered over the balcony wall of his embassy office on the Citadel.</p><p><em>Curse your prick</em>, Donnel condemned himself. <em>You met Martha Shephard and you fucked yourself, not only her. You earned the spite of a vengeful husband and the goddamn leader of a faction that broke with the Alliance.</em></p><p>Luck had not been on Donnel’s side. Hamming a fist into his palm, he sat up and thought above the crisp, white desk of his office.</p><p>“Control,” he officially announced to the air, “please connect an outgoing call.”</p><p>A VI appeared, swirling green with curved shapes forming its presence. “Ambassador Donnel Udina. Where would you like this call to connect?”</p><p>“Earth. North American continent. Berisley, Virginia. Enforcement of Civil Servants Office.”</p><p>“Is this an emergency, Ambassador?” The VI waited, hovering over his desk in front of him.</p><p>“Yes, and it should be treated with confidentiality. A tip to be provided for a most unfortunate incident by Turian agents from the Hierarchy, unauthorized and condemnable. Have ECSO send a search party to the nearby woods of the former Lana and William Clarke residence. Look for a burn site in a ravine with bodies.”</p><p>He resigned from the call and strode from his desk, the wheels of the chair rolling across a white floor. He, himself, was dressed in white with gold pin-striping along the hems of his sleeves, coat trim, and shoulders. Donnel’s dark hair was cut close and cropped to his head, a deep widow’s peak, eyes dark, and his skin only slightly lighter. The nose of the man was flared with a constant look of distaste, as if everywhere lurked some foul odor that aggrieved his sense of smell.</p><p>Traveling to the door of his office with its high walls and flat ceilings, he accessed the exit key and strode out towards the Council’s offices, making in his head what he would have to say and rehearse over and over until he himself believed that Lana Shephard was dead.</p>
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<a name="section0121"><h2>121. Chapter 121</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A drellahna was a sight. Clad in skirts that spun and separated, the vivid colors and intricate patterns swirled in hypnotic array, rising and falling from her waist to above her head and below her ankles. The sensual display of tebris along waist and hips could be seen as the dance continued on in the side of the plaza, male Drell and other drellahna enjoying by watching, calling to her talent, clapping on the shine of oil-slicked scale over a packed body that was as long as it was lean.</p><p>Elsewhere in the plaza of Hallmar’s Key, decorated eyelids pulled apart and lifted sideways, the expression in the smile exaggerated, rehearsed. Triangular bells along hips and knees shook and sang with the rhythm belying rhythm that was exuberant yet trained, a mastery of muscle and movement meant to entertain and be shared among drellahna celebrating the hara, which at one point had the true meaning of ‘sisterhood’ before it was adulterated on Rakhana. Their toes were covered with shoes upon the plaza, yet in several squares, the lay of the streets swept clean and laid down by mats where drellahna danced barefoot. Several Hanar mingled in the throngs, observing, not participating, for the benefit of study and oversight on the controlled celebration.</p><p>Lana would have been dazzled to see the athleticism of the drellahna and to admire the flare of their crest-like coils along the back of their heads, woven through crowns, immovable hair of a sleek scaled cording that ribboned its way into their tebris, all assorted pinks, purples, browns, and more. They had wide, expressive eyes even with the tinting for reading Hanar luminescence. Their patak structure was high, cheeks svelte, confident and strong as the males, yet feminine and divine. They knew how to move their hands independent their bodies and legs, long, not thin, terpsichorean, not clumsy. The more they revealed, the more the males heated, and the more touch they imparted, the more the vestigial tebris swelled along their hips and waists, among throats and jaws.</p><p>A sensuality took life in some locations throughout the plaza, which drew the attention of some of the Hanar as it helped them observe the natural selection of the Drell. Whereas in other places, beneath swaying lamps filled with bioluminescent, aquatic crustaceans in jars, more serious competition took forth among male and female away from the heat of exotic fervor.</p><p>Ropes and shirts whipped in circles as Drell held hands above their heads, following the pattern set forth by a single leading male or female at the front of the line, which was determined by way the heads turned, watching for a signal at the leader. Knees bent faster than eyes could watch, pausing only in dramatic hold of movement, before feet, shoes, soles, slapped on the ground and the whole line moved in a sudden, violent burst of energy. Some jumped high. Others sank low but on one leg, coaxed by the crazy cheers and smiles all around. Not everyone was dressed for Nyahir in appropriate fashion, but everyone was moving, eating while they waited their turns or observed more puissant displays of dance, such as the fast moving Shohn, among which two Drell stood apart, arms high as they kicked, leapt, and stomped, legs a blur, coordinating from one and other while a musician beat a loud drum faster than pebbles hitting a rock from a cupful of sand. The drummer of the timo was always accompanied by an artist of the obelia, and both were taught to engage the crowds by playing, moving into close proximity, making eye contact, and challenging one and all to show their mastery of limb and body.</p><p>Thane stepped from the lift with Feron at his right, Quoyle behind, into the bottom lobby of Hallmar’s Key. The walls were less yellow, closed on three sides but for doors and concierges, paintings of old Rakhana and new Kahje Drell and sights. He stripped off his coat and handed this to Quoyle as Feron strode forward, allured by the pump and vibrant displays beyond the glass wall and open entrance to the plaza. One had to climb steps covered with reed to the higher brick, a mosaic really under hundreds of feet. Threaded above, the lamps pulsed and glowed, their originators of light careless of the intensity below.</p><p>His teness were assailed by the infectious romps of thrumming music that were drudging up intense memory from his life as a Rakhic Drell. Even removed from Rakhana to be joined with the Hanar on Kahje and his brethren of secrecy, Thane remembered the true meaning behind the beat and traditional song.</p><p>Live while one could. Life was ever a competition. Lust if you had to. Love if you were fortunate.</p><p>He knew the Hanar did not appreciate the gusto, being predominantly quiet and reclusive, but Thane knew better than to believe that all Hanar were so modest and peaceful.</p><p>There was a drellahna with red scales and blue crests, bending back as her hands moved extravagantly in a tale of Arashu’s coming. Laying eyes on her, Feron watched, and let his blood pump, tebris naturally swelling at the sight of such a prowess of body and talents.</p><p>Trills filled the air, some above the beats and pipes. Drell greeted each other with the custom left shoulder touch and brow scale doff with their right hands, before taking hold of one they challenged to lead out into a new line or dance the Shohn.</p><p>Thane would have waited for his son, Kolyat, if his heart weren’t so twisting in ire.</p><p>
  <em>So she wants me to find myself, and be reminded that I am not one of her.</em>
</p><p>He locked eyes with a drellahna whose skin was as bright as emeralds and her tebris as brilliant as a yellow could be in a blue sky. She smiled at him, and curved her wrists, beckoning the handsome Drell to her undulating body, abular muscle flashing in coils, venom secreted by the invitation of her body.</p><p>Feron inflated his tebris in arousal and pushed passed Thane, who had remained still, unmoving towards the open invite.</p><p>He hesitated and looked back at Quoyle and Thane.</p><p>“Do you mind? Just one dance? Or do I have to stare at Miranda’s ass and jerk off later?” He lewdly grinned.</p><p>Thane and Quoyle shook their heads and laughed, goading him onward.</p><p>Feron stopped to take off his coat, wearing only a vest beneath, and handed this to Thane.</p><p>With his colorful arms flexed at his sides, he strode towards the drellahna, who turned her hips around towards his arrival.</p><p>Feron trilled.</p><p>“Don’t worry. I’m coming.”</p><p>He grinned, eyes slitting in anticipation of heat and venom.</p><p>“I love me drellahna with hips like fire.” Grabbing her, but gentle about her curving waist, he pressed forward and lowered his lips to the crest about her teness.</p><p>“Now show me how you burn.”</p>
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<a name="section0122"><h2>122. Chapter 122</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kolyat stared at the barrel of the assault rifle aimed at he and Graine. The small Vorcha bared her teeth in a fierce growl as the white uniformed officer held her in his sights.</p><p>They were seated in the chairs of a large shuttle, a three-level vessel that transported the lot of them—Graine, Kolyat, Wrex, Garrus, Joker, Kenn, and Tali—from each location where they’d been picked up, forced to cooperate by order of an armed group of overton who had arrived in skypods.</p><p>Not willing to fight against Kahjic reinforcement, Kolyat had persuaded Garrus and the others to disarm of their guns and follow the instructions. The overtons had permitted them to disembark the Villetta and come out into the rain, their hands empty, without being cuffed or rudely handled.</p><p>When a shuttle appeared in the low fog over the bay of Sybilla, Kolyat began to worry. It descended onto the padak left of theirs, scattering water and rain with its thrusters beneath the chassis. Two doors parted and a ramp lowered. Wrex had been seen inside, curiously holding a box in his claws while he sat against a wall on a bench.</p><p>A man in white raingear came forth from the shuttle after it descended. He had a gun and waved it at them.</p><p>“Head to the Human shuttle and board. No problems from any of you,” an overton rasped over thick vocals.</p><p>Kenn and Tali walked side by side as they went ahead of the others, Tali pausing once to glance behind her to Joker, who was walking on his own but having trouble with the tide swirling and tugging around their feet. Garrus picked up Graine, whom he lightly swung onto the rim of his neck armor, and supported Joker with a claw on the man’s shoulder. Graine comfortably straddled Garrus’s back of head, her legs dangling over the armor in front as both Turian and Human strode the wet surface ebbing and flowing over the padak docks towards the man in white and the Krogan domestically seated beyond.</p><p>Kolyat held up to stare at the closest overton, trying to commit a face to memory through the slash of rain.</p><p>“Move on, Kolyat.”</p><p>He startled, wondering. “How do you know my name?” Water spit from his mouth.</p><p>The overton lifted his head and pushed back a slapping wet hood, revealing dark green crests with bands of black, red ribbing along his tebris. Though darker with tints of orange, he had the face of Kolyat’s father.</p><p>“Uncle Hiatt!”</p><p>Kolyat sprang forward, sloshing through rain and water. Hiatt, Thane’s younger brother, reached forward and stroked the young Drell’s crown.</p><p>“Don’t delay, young sprat. You’re supposed to go with the shuttle, and those Humans don’t like to be kept waiting.”</p><p>Kolyat ignored him and embraced his uncle, who had always been an overton among the IP. Hiatt’s arms winged out from his gun while the young Drell squeezed him in unchecked affection. Kolyat’s worry was somewhat eased. His clothing was near saturated, but he was relieved to see Hiatt there.</p><p>When he let him go, Hiatt kindly palmed his nephew’s brow scales and looked at the eyes staring back, very much those of as close to a son as Kolyat was to Thane.</p><p>“It is good to see you.” Hiatt grinned and pulled his hood back over to protect himself from the streaming rain. “I came to make sure that nothing would happen to you and now I have done my part. Tell your father Luna and I say hello.”</p><p>“Will we see you later?” Kolyat hopefully asked.</p><p>Hiatt shook his chin. His black-eyed stare wandered passed Kolyat to the waiting shuttle. “Not this day, at least. . . Go on, Kolyat, and be careful.”</p><p>“Where are they taking us? Can you tell me?”</p><p>“We are not supposed to be speaking, let alone hugging, young Kol,” Hiatt growled, then lightened, gesturing to the mountain hidden in the mists. “Most likely somewhere near Vassla. Your father will be waiting.” His gaze reclaimed Kolyat’s. “I hear he has taken another woman.”</p><p>“Yeah, maybe,” Kolyat replied.</p><p>Hiatt cleared his throat, forcing back a wet cough from the rain. Kolyat was squinting through the constant patter.</p><p>“It is Nyahir in three days. Mind yourself, what with your proximity around the festivities.”</p><p>“Nauza,” Kolyat whispered.</p><p>Hiatt grinned and stepped backwards, pleased his nephew had shown his smarts.</p><p>Kolyat respectfully touched his left shoulder and brow, and Hiatt did the same, but as he held out his palm, Kolyat grasped this. For a moment they held each other’s hands, and then Kolyat turned, jogging through the water to catch up in time with Garrus and Joker boarding the ramp. They joined the others inside the shuttle, comforted by heat and light.</p><p>Graine climbed from Garrus’s armor to settle herself amongst Kolyat’s shoulders. She turned as he did, trying for one last wave at his uncle. The overtons stood like statues in the rain, formed around the Villetta. He did not see his uncle wave back at him.</p><p>“Who was that?” Garrus asked as the ramp began to lift in order to seal the doors waiting to close. Kolyat glanced away from his uncle’s tall frame to look at the Turian, then at Wrex with some puzzlement.</p><p>“Just someone I recognized,” Kolyat mysteriously answered, rubbing Graine’s claw and patting it as she began to growl.</p><p>Her lips peeled back, baring sharp little fangs at a set of white gloves reaching for her. Kolyat blocked away the officer with a sweep of his arm, catching hold and turning the man’s wrist as he grunted in pain. Kolyat firmly locked it behind his back, his features set in stone.</p><p>“No one touches the kid. Who are you and why have you taken us?”</p><p>A nozzle, black and cold, aimed down at him from a pilot area above their level on which they stood. Garrus opened and closed his mandibles with agitation, defensively raising an arm in front of Tali and Joker.</p><p>“That Alien needs to be checked for viruses,” clipped the voice from beyond the helmet of the Human that Kolyat was restraining.</p><p>“This one’s clean,” Kolyat said, challenging the other one at the end of the rifle standing above.</p><p>“Easy. Everybody take it easy,” said a voice, bass and casual. A man emerged from the front of the shuttle, stepping through two pilot seats from where he’d been resting.</p><p>Down from the cockpit strode this man after descending two steps onto the main hold. He had black hair, black skin, eye whites with deep pools of brown irises. The man sported a trimmed goatee, sharp mustache, and a neat square of hair beneath his lower lip. He had critical eyes and a professional demeanor despite the casualness of his tone.</p><p>“You vouch for the Vorcha, we’ll leave her alone, but if you don’t let go of my man, I can’t promise I can deliver you to your captain unharmed. Violence isn’t my way, but I know how to use it.” His eyes lit blue, glowing with dark energy before this faded. He then shrugged. “Besides, there’s no reason for it. He just needs to scan her. . . Do you mind?”</p><p>He wore a similar white uniform to the man being freed by Kolyat. His coat collar was higher, clasped around his neck. The brown eyes went to Tali and Kenn.</p><p>“Are you two good? I understand Quarians have need for constant maintenance. If you feel an urge, there are sterile cabins down below for you to use should you need to make adjustments to your envirosuits.”</p><p>Tali and Kenn looked at each other.</p><p>The man brought his gaze back to Kolyat and Graine, who was now receiving a scan from the overly cautious Human who had distanced himself just enough to get her reading and not be strong-armed again by Kolyat.</p><p>Graine crawled into Kolyat’s arms and hung outward from his chest by one claw fisted around a strap on his C-Sec vest. She inquisitively sniffed at the scanner, a gray box with an orange display emerging from a pinpoint of light at its end. It flashed over her face in three waves.</p><p>“We’re really not threatening to you unless you attack us,” the man went on. He looked down at Wrex, who was holding a small box in his lap between possessive claws.</p><p>“You sure we can’t store that for you?”</p><p>Wrex thumbed the top of the lid.</p><p>“I said, I’ve got it.”</p><p>The man raised his black eyebrows and tilted his head, rolling his lips.</p><p>“Fine for me. . . We have DrNA rations for those of you sensitive to Human food. Should you have any interest in experimenting,” he chuckled, flashing his toothy smile, “my men and women are trained xeno-medically for your benefit—“</p><p>“As opposed to just regular medically,” Wrex rumbled.</p><p>“Well, you <em>are</em> all Aliens,” the man said, rubbing his palms together, fingers outstretched.</p><p>Garrus and Kolyat shared rude glares.</p><p>“We call it what it is, and if you have a problem with being treated for your differences,” the man stopped circling his palms and folded the fingers over both hands, clasped out in front of him, “then you’re going to have a hard time getting to like Cerberus.” The grin widened, bright in its confidence. “I hear we’ll <em>all</em> be working together soon.”</p>
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<a name="section0123"><h2>123. Chapter 123</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Raising her forehead from her knees, Lana peered over the forearm to see David roll over, stretch until his face pudged into a little grimace, then open his green eyes and blink groggily at her from the bottom of the cotovatre.</p><p>They peered at each other in quiet for a minute, then David gave her a big grin full of most of his teeth. Lana reached in and took him from the cotovatre, putting him in her lap and sitting him on her hip so she could see him and he could comfortably sit. His hands felt the trails of her hair as he reached to squeeze her face, catching her in a vice grip that made her smile as he beamed up at her.</p><p>“You’re probably hungry. I should go get those mean women outside and ask them for food.” Rising from the floor, she stepped out into the room with a swish of synthetic leather that hugged and gripped in absurd manner. She glanced at the white uniform sitting on the bed and was having second thoughts when the door abruptly slid open.</p><p>Garrus blinked back at her, then down at David, who was spellbound by the tall Turian.</p><p>“Shephard—Spirits—we were wondering what happened to you and Thane—“</p><p>Kolyat pushed him out of the way as Graine broke through both their legs and grabbed onto Lana’s. She and David looked down at the alarmed Vorcha, who stared, confused, at the boy in her arms.</p><p>“Graine?” Her rugged little chirp of a voice seemed to echo in question at what Lana was doing, holding someone else in her arms.</p><p>Lana bit her lip and shook her head.</p><p>
  <em>Am I really going to have to explain this?</em>
</p><p>“Lana, where’s my dad?”</p><p>She looked up at Kolyat who crowded into the room with Tali and Kenn.</p><p>Tali gasped when she saw the little boy in Lana’s arms and reached out both her own to hold him. Lana licked her lip and glanced at David, who stuck one hand out at Tali, grasping for her suit and silkwear.</p><p>“Okay, just sit down on the bed with him?”</p><p>“Shephard! He’s beautiful!” Tali carried him high, looking up at him through her visor as she walked to the bed to sit as Lana instructed.</p><p>Kolyat’s eyes followed the blond child, a unique expression on his face. Lana turned to him, and Garrus, as Graine crawled up her pants into her arms, satisfied that her place was reclaimed by her own body this time and the strange Human child was had been properly removed.</p><p>Lana looked helpless.</p><p>“So that’s your son,” Kolyat said, letting his eyes fall to hers. “David.”</p><p>Lana nodded. She swept a strand out of her face, Kolyat looking at her features and matching these to the child’s own.</p><p>“You’re going to need to explain to her who <em>he</em> is,” Garrus said, pointing a talon at Graine, who was staring over Lana’s shoulder at David grabbing Tali’s head gear and pulling.</p><p>Kenn was there to go to her rescue, uttering a polite greeting to Lana as he walked passed to help Tali keep her mask and gear on.</p><p>“Graine,” Lana said, moving to the bed with her, “this is my son. His name is David. . . David Clarke.”</p><p>“You’re going to keep his name?” Tali scoffed. “You should call him ‘David Shephard’. No more ‘Clarke’.”</p><p>“He’s going to need to know who his father is, Tali,” Kenn said to his female companion.</p><p>“Speaking of fathers, where’s mine,” Kolyat asked again, taking Graine out of Lana’s hands and placing her on the bed. Graine immediately went to inspect David, who turned in Tali’s hands and stared back at the black little eyes glued on him.</p><p>Kolyat scented Lana and put his hand against the wall, leaning in on her. “Where is he. . . You smell different.”</p><p>“That could be because she’s surrounded by Drell <em>other</em> than Thane,” Garrus said, moving Kolyat away from her with his claw. He clapped his mandibles at Kolyat’s face. “Give her some room.” He swiveled his head back to Lana, and even she saw Garrus’s shrewd eyes inspecting. “You good?”</p><p>“I’ve been down an interesting road today, Garrus.”</p><p>“I’ll say,” Wrex rumbled, stumping in.</p><p>David began to cry.</p><p>Lana went over and picked him up from Tali, rocking the boy in her arms as her crew gathered in the bedroom to reunite with their missing companion. Lana shushed David and stroked his neck as he turned his head and stared at the Krogan taking up the doorway.</p><p>Wrex clenched his lip and looked down at the box in the crook of his elbow. He sighed as the boy began to cry again, at the sight of him.</p><p>“Here. . . I bought two, but I really only need one. And if he doesn’t like it, no harm. I can take it back.”</p><p>Opening the mysterious box, he pulled out one of the Hanar dolls from the red and blue paper wrap and it instantly began to cycle through colors. Graine watched with jealousy as Wrex passed thisspecial doll to Lana, who encouraged David to take a hold of it.</p><p>David’s eyes widened in wonder at the changing Hanar colors, and his face relaxed from its flushing of tears. He began to pull at the tentacles and bell of the body, curious as to why it was changing colors, and how.</p><p>“That’s what you came to Kahje for?” Lana asked.</p><p>“Some bounty,” Garrus chuffed.</p><p>Wrex gave them a mean glare, then snorted.</p><p>“I said I’d get one for my niece. She’s young. We don’t get a lot of kids in the clans these days. . . But maybe one day she’ll have a daughter of her own. Anyway, I got it for her. I was going to ask if maybe a return trip could be routed through you and I’d pay with my arm, a few credits.”</p><p>Lana smiled, her eyes creasing at the big, scary Krogan with his red eyes.</p><p>“Wrex, I’ll take you home free of charge. I suspect it may be a while, what with some new developments having taken place today, but I can arrange something. Inevitably. Do you mind hanging around with us for a while longer?”</p><p>“I kind of got the impression we were all being hijacked and kidnapped by the folks in the white suits outside. Want me to start breaking some necks out there? I can take the Drell in the doorway, but there’ll be more and they’re armed. May need some of your biotics.”</p><p>“Lana, where is my father?” Kolyat demanded, pushing Garrus aside.</p><p>Lana passed David back to Tali with the Hanar plush toy, Graine moving over to now inspect a trailing tendril. She turned to Kolyat, nodded to the bathroom for privacy, and excused herself for a moment from the rest.</p><p>Lana let him go in first and Kolyat turned around. He leaned against the vestibule for the wash basin. With his arms crossed over his chest in waiting, he held a remarkable quality similar to his father’s.</p><p>“Kolyat, I’m going to give you a choice like I gave your father. He’s fine right now. I think.”</p><p>“What’s that supposed to mean?” He narrowed his eyes and stood, approaching her. “We let you two go off alone for whatever reason and don’t hear anything for hours. Then we get forced out of the Villetta by overtons, boarded into a shuttle with some arrogant tool who thinks a white uniform is a good idea—and don’t get me started on the brilliance of that,” he sarcastically snarled, “and suddenly here we are. Except you have a kid, and my dad’s missing.”</p><p>“Your dad’s not missing. He’s down in the plaza at the party.”</p><p>“He is?”</p><p>“Listen.” She bumped her hip against the sink, crossing her arms over the soft squeal of a wrapped top that was just too snug. Lana saw Kolyat’s eyes suddenly focus on her uniform. “I have given Thane the opportunity to choose whether or not he wants to stay on Kahje with you, or to come with me on whatever my next steps will be.”</p><p>“You a commando or something? That looks like an Asari getup.”</p><p>She glanced down at the tight black suit.</p><p>“Did you hear what I said. . .” She narrowed her eyes at him, turning head slightly in question.</p><p>Kolyat lowered his face close to hers. “You broke up with my dad?”</p><p>“No. . . I gave him—Listen, it’s important that he choose to come without my influence. Now that he’s handled Stiv—“</p><p>Kolyat backed up. “He got who? Did you say Stiv? As in <em>Stiv Kay</em>?”</p><p>She pursed her lips.</p><p>“Lana. Tell me.”</p><p>“Stiv Kay was provided to him through Cerberus in exchange for delivering me.”</p><p>Kolyat nearly fell over the sanitary basin he backed into.</p><p>Lana covered her mouth from laughing.</p><p>“Everything okay in there?” Garrus said, poking his muzzle in.</p><p>He was holding David in his arms to give the boy a view of where the mother had gotten to.</p><p>“Garrus, can you take David to Kelly Chambers and ask for food?”</p><p>“Who’s Kelly Chambers?”</p><p>“The red head,” Kolyat answered, regaining his composure and yet taking a seat on the lid.</p><p>Garrus chirrummed and nodded, then with a glance at Lana, tilted out of view with David. She could hear him talking to the others and Kelly’s voice rising from the other room.</p><p>“You don’t know what that means to me,” Kolyat said, staring at her.</p><p>“I think I wouldn’t try to, but I know it meant a lot to your father. Now you two can move on.”</p><p>“It’s not so easy, but, yeah, it kind of closes a door.” He swept his hands over his crest, paused, and swore.</p><p>“What’s wrong?”</p><p>“I just. . . Wow. It’s over.” Kolyat hunched and gathered to his knees. The Drell sat still for some time, then straightened and went to stand in front of her.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>Lana huffed, a bemused smile twisting her mouth. “I didn’t do anything.”</p><p>“You gave yourself to Cerberus. My dad got Stiv Kay, the asshole who killed my mom. Or. . . Well, it doesn’t matter.” He looked off at the floor. A smile lit his face. “May she rest now.”</p><p>“I think you need to talk to your father.”</p><p>“Yeah. I do.”</p><p>He looked at her.</p><p>“He wants to be with you, you know. . . I’m kind of jealous he met you first.”</p><p>Lana raised her eyebrows.</p><p>“Don’t look surprised,” he said, tucking hands into his pockets and fighting the urge to feel her through the synthetic clothes. “You two have my full support.”</p><p>She smiled in relief. Kolyat’s brow scales dipped.</p><p>“Did you really send him out to a party for Nyahir and tell him to decide if he wanted to come back or not?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>He saw her look down at her fists.</p><p>“I told him he had to be free if he was going to come back. . . To me.”</p><p>“Okay.” Kolyat rolled his lips and popped. He glanced down, looked up at her.</p><p>“Kol. . . What are you—no—don’t you dare!”</p><p>He rolled her onto his shoulders and carried her out into the bedroom.</p><p>Everyone looked surprised.</p><p>“We’re going to find my dad. Watch the kids. Garrus, you’re in charge,” Kolyat called out, Lana covering her eyes, then peeking to see Tali and Kelly both holding David, who was eating something off a spoon while Graine was tasting the drippings that had fallen onto Kelly’s pant legs.</p><p>“Actually, I’m in charge,” Miranda said.</p><p>“No,” Garrus leaned over her, “<em>you said</em> Lana’s our captain and we’re her crew, so we only take orders from her. And she’s left me in charge. Or Kolyat did for her.”</p><p>Miranda burned him with a hot glare as Wrex rumbled in some chuckles.</p><p>“Where do you think you’re going—oh, it’s you.”</p><p>Thekla stepped back with the man from the shuttle and the high white collar. He thumbed at Kolyat.</p><p>“This is the one I was telling you about.”</p><p>Kolyat sneered at the cohen and dropped Lana to her feet. She opened her mouth and tilted her head at the new Human, but no sound came out.</p><p>“Jacob Taylor.” He thrust out his hand, eyes locked on hers.</p><p>“Lana Shephard.” She found her voice and shook his hand before Kolyat tugged her after him.</p><p>“Come on. You can learn who the tool is later. I’m taking you down to the seabed to find my father.”</p><p>Kolyat dragged her into the lift.</p><p>“Bottom floor, plaza level.”</p><p>“How do you have control over this?”</p><p>“My uncle’s an overton. I have access everywhere here.” He grinned at Lana. “And I was considered for cohen at one point.”</p><p>“So why’d you leave to work at C-Sec of all places?”</p><p>“Kahje’s nice, but it’s not home anymore,” he replied, looking forward at the doors. His sleek crest where it was blue stood out more in the yellow lift. “It all changed for me when my mom was murdered. And then when my uncle told me what my dad did, I went searching for him.”</p><p>“At the Citadel?”</p><p>“Everywhere. He found <em>me</em> actually. I was about to. . . Follow in his footsteps. . . But with something other than the Protectorate.”</p><p>“And what’s the Protectorate?”</p><p>“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” He looked at her dangerously.</p><p>“Please,” she snorted.</p><p>Kolyat smiled. “You sure you want to be with my dad? I hear I look more handsome than him. Commander like you should have someone young and strong to blow off steam with.”</p><p>“Good God.”</p><p>“I’m just playing.” He bumped her knee from behind, causing her to dip and catch herself.</p><p>She threw him a dry look, straightening. “No, you’re hoping. And it’s a lost cause, Kolyat. I pick your father.” <em>If he picks me.</em></p><p>Kolyat chuckled, shaking his head. “You know if he goes with you, you got me, too.”</p><p>“Well, in that case, I’ll have to set aside a fund for babysitting your future step-brother.”</p><p>Kolyat stared at her. “He did not.”</p><p>“No, but I have the feeling he wanted to ask.”</p><p>“Marriage, really?” Kolyat blew out his lips. “I guess it has been over twenty years since he last had anybody.” He shrugged. “And he’ll die before I do, so that means I inherit the marriage and all its perks.”</p><p>“That is <em>not true.”</em></p><p>“No, it isn’t,” he smirked as she slapped him on the arm.</p><p>“I can’t believe you said that. . . He’ll die before you do. You’re a terrible son.”</p><p>“You’re a terrible kisser.”</p><p>She laughed.</p><p>“Seriously—who taught you how to kiss?” he asked, facing her.</p><p>“You’re such a dick.” She couldn’t stop laughing at his mock expression of incredulity.</p><p>“Well, now that we’ve cleared the air,” he said, turning back to the doors as these opened, “let’s go find my father. . . And wouldn’t you know.” Kolyat grinned. “There he is.”</p><p>Thane was ahead of them with his back turned.</p><p>A very broad, black striped, naked back.</p><p>He was covered in a slick sheen of his own excited venom, cooling down from the Shohn dance he had just participated in and saying ‘No’ to a shot of syver from one of the key concierges. Quoyle was half naked next to him, his back ribbed with straps of muscle and colorful hues aside from the red and navy blue. Bounding into them suddenly was Feron, stripped down to his pants as Quoyle was, and shouting with the intensity of the music.</p><p>Lana could barely hear Kolyat and nervously pulled her hair behind her ears with fists, then down to her neck and collarbone. <em>Shit, my hair’s long,</em> was a distant thought as she peered about the lobby and tried to understand the noise. The language was different and she didn’t recognize a word the Drell around them were speaking. She also felt self conscious as a few looks became a few more. Drell, male and female, noticed the Human’s curious arrival. Kolyat slipped his arm around her shoulders and leaned towards her.</p><p>“Just act natural. And be yourself. Oh, and don’t make eye contact. You’re not allowed to make eye contact. They’ll eat you.”</p><p>“You’re joking, right?” she shouted.</p><p>Thane’s body stiffened. She could see it happen from where she was fifteen steps away.</p><p>“Yes.” Kolyat gave her a jolting shake. “Relax, Lana!”</p><p>Thane turned.</p><p>Lana grinned. He was covered in sweat, or she thought it was sweat. As Thane turned and stared at her in the new uniform Cerberus had provided, Quoyle and Feron did as well, their dilated eyes widening. Feron cast a huge grin at her and shoved Thane from behind. Kolyat tightened his grip on her shoulders.</p><p>“Be careful. That’s not sweat he’s covered in,” Kolyat warned. “You might want to avoid it because of David.”</p><p>Thane staggered over from Feron’s push, and Lana’s grin became more forced as she detected something different in his eyes.</p><p>“Lana, what are you doing here?”</p><p>“I—“</p><p>“I brought her down to see you. . . Dad.”</p><p>Thane blinked twice, his lids fluttering over his lenses.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>He licked his lips and swayed after blurting this out.</p><p>“I. . . Love you. . . Lana Shephard.”</p><p>He pulled her with him by the hand, stumbling backwards, the feralness in his eyes slowly blinking out as he connected with her scent.</p><p>Kolyat went to join Feron, who rocked into him and suggested that he get dressed down for dancing.</p><p>“How’s he been?” Kolyat yelled to the other Drell.</p><p>“He’s been sweeping the rest of us under the reeds,” Quoyle shared, his voice loud, easily overreaching the drums, pipes, and bells, singing and chanting. “Your father is the champion of Shohn. He’s a spell to watch. Worked up a lather, too, as you can see.”</p><p>Thane grabbed a towel from the concierge desk and began to dry himself of his venom. The fervor of constant movement and the excitement aroused by the presence of females of his own species had caused him to produce an abundance of his oils. He was lucid, however, and when he heard Lana’s voice, he had responded as though there was no other.</p><p>Drying down his arms, chest, and back, he wiped his face and tied the towel to his pants. Holding onto Lana’s hands, he pulled her to him from where she was standing, waiting in front of him by the desk.</p><p>“I prayed,” he shouted, so she could hear him.</p><p>Lana only stared.</p><p>“I prayed that Arashu would send me my siha back if I danced and did as you told me to! I found you here! I love you!”</p><p>Lana smiled, and this time there was no hesitation.</p><p>He calmed and stroked her cheeks with his fingers, nestling close to her and breathing in her smell. He spoke directly into her ear.</p><p>“I want to make love to you! I want to feel you when you come around me! I don’t feel like this for anyone else here! I want <em>you</em>! Do you want me?”</p><p>He hesitated to, but pulled away from her, looking inquiringly into her face.</p><p>The anxiety was etched on his scales and in his eyes.</p><p>Lana smiled a tad softer and cupped both sides of his patak, pulling him into her, opening her mouth.</p><p>“I love you,” she said against his lips before she let him kiss her. She ran the words on his skin, before he could crush his softness against hers. Lifting her, he spun in a slow circle, thirsting for her taste, mixing with her saliva, experiencing the bless of her lips with his, and the perfect scrape of teeth on his tongue. He bit his lip, sought more of her, hands grasping her bottom, hardness pushing from his pants to tease at her door. He wanted her. He would have taken her right there in the lobby if he didn’t have better sense. He wanted to burn against her, thinking that Feron had done the same with the drellahna the Drell was smitten by.</p><p>Thane had Lana.</p><p>She had him.</p><p>And by the looks of it, his son was okay with this. Irikah may have looked across from her distant shore and smiled.</p><p>“I love you!” Thane shouted, letting her down and taking her with him into the throngs. Drell and drellahna opened up, at first bemused, then amused, by the presence of the champion of the Shohn and his guest, whom he delighted in teaching the romp of the dance.</p><p>“What are you trying to do?” Lana shouted at him, Thane swinging her hard.</p><p>“I am trying to teach you how to dance!”</p><p>He tugged her to him, roughly, and slapped his hand against her bottom as he looked down at her in his tilt. “It starts like this.”</p><p>“You did this with Feron?”</p><p>“No!” He scoffed and chortled, tugging her away and kissing her hand. Raising the towel he loosened from his pants, the Drell about him began to cheer and take up a new line of bodies, waiting in expectation. Thane kicked up his right leg, exaggerated a stomp, and whipped the towel over his head. He caught Lana’s hand as she backed away, shaking her head, tresses abound, and hands pushed her towards him. She couldn’t see Kolyat, Feron, or Quoylenow with where they were, surrounded by revelers, but she had a feeling they were watching.</p><p>“Pick up your feet, woman!”</p><p>Thane shouted, holding her tight against him.</p><p>“I can’t if you’re holding onto me!” she cried out, laughing.</p><p>He released her, and grabbing the hand of Quoyle, who materialized beside him with Kolyat and Feron, the four began to demonstrate the Shohn, which Lana had to back away from lest she get kicked from standing around. Thane stopped and went to her, not wanting her to feel unable, and spinning her, he tossed the towel to Quoyle who took up the gallant moves. Slowly, step by step, Thane taught Lana each motion with her legs, touching their knees together, his hand sliding up her thighs after adjusting her positions, feet touching heels together of opposite partners, until she was able to jump, perhaps not as high, but enough to participate. The crossing of legs and bending of ankles brought them closer together than even Thane or Lana could have ever anticipated.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0124"><h2>124. Chapter 124</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Blurred vision. The sound of her heartbeat. The echo of breathing as though in a tube or a tunnel. Blood pumping. The distant noise of cheers and music.</p><p>And pleasure. Wave after wave of pleasure.</p><p>She could hear his rapid breathing against her neck, humming in her ear. Arms as tight as rope wrapped her waist, hands pressed flat against her back. Her shoulders were pinned to the wall, a rough and granular texture. Teeth showed between her lips as her mouth quaked open to huff in air. Green lips moved to cover hers, lustful and desperate.</p><p>He whimpered into her mouth, shaking her with each stroke.</p><p>There were so many.</p><p>Her fingers and palms slipped against the wall. Calves rubbed against his chest and shoulders.</p><p>Thane uttered a cry as he tore away from her mouth, squinting into her eyes, his face contorting with an orgasm that was compounded by his high and her squeezing around him.</p><p>Her palms slapped against his forearms, fingernails digging into the black and green bands of scale.</p><p>“Thane, I’m coming,” she whispered in a husk.</p><p>“I know!” His voice was tight, near plaintive.</p><p>Her stomach tightened into a knot.</p><p>He didn’t stop. Hardness. Relentlessly punishing and wonderful.</p><p>“Oh God—I’m coming, I’m coming. . .”</p><p>“Kala,” he whispered, watching her face soar to the top of the alley. Her throat worked as she gulped for air, light crossing her skin.</p><p>His hands moved like lightning, connecting to her hips. His hips moved like lightning, stealing the scream from her.</p><p>“Stop!”</p><p>He froze, but he was buried in deep. Lana felt herself shudder in a place she had no control over.</p><p>Wave after wave washed through. </p><p>Her toes began to relax.</p><p>“I love you. . . Say it.”</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>“Do I please you?”</p><p>“Yes.” Her head fell forward to bump against his.</p><p>He smiled into the shadow cast by her hair around his face.</p><p>“We can never do this again,” she said, shaking her head.</p><p>“What do you mean,” he murmured, kissing her face.</p><p>She looked up at his eyes.</p><p>They were in an alley not far from the key.He had Lana in a ‘V’, pressing her against the wall, mainly supporting her with his own strength.</p><p>The need to find some place where they could release the energy they had been building was paramount at this point, what with all the touching and looks, hot fingers and pheromonal exchange. Thane had used the throngs and dancing to evade Quoyle’s observation.</p><p>He pushed his hips back, and both of them whined at the slow disconnection.</p><p>“I need to come down,” she said. “My hip is cramping.”</p><p>She saw his brow scale come forward, the black glossy pentagon lit on one side from the light of the alleyway’s entrance.</p><p>She could feel him take a deep breath.</p><p>“Thane.”</p><p>His face lifted to hers, black and green, and she could see the faint coloring of softer lime and yellow. As his eyes blinked, pressure built between her thighs again.</p><p>“I’m not done yet. . . And neither are you.”</p><p>They cried together. Building slow, moving faster, he let down one of her legs. The other he lowered to his right waist, green fingers indenting the smooth, unscarred skin. Lana wrapped one hand around the back of his neck. Her fingers covered the vertical stripes along slick muscle. Pressing her forehead to his, she kept their eyes open. Intensity in the eyelock. Red tebris stretching suddenly as he arched his chin up. Lana pulled his face back to hers, reconnecting with his eyes. “Don’t you look away from me.”</p><p>“Never,” was spoken on his inhale.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0125"><h2>125. Chapter 125</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Another shudder. His mouth hovered over hers, both of them breathing each other’s breath. Thane let down her left leg and began to pull up his pants while she pulled on and rebuckled her own. Catching her shoulder, he pushed her back against the wall, head angling left to kiss under her jaw. Lana planted her hand into his chest, wrapped his vest in her fist, and kissed his mouth as he came about to her face. Their kissing slowed down. Thane gripped her waist, sliding his hands down to her hips, hugging her tight to him.</p><p>“We should go back,” he murmured into her ear. He pulled away and looked in her eyes. She bent her neck forward and kissed his upper lip, waiting while their noses touched.</p><p>“Yeah. I think you’re right.”</p><p>He took her hand in his, and with a little swing, twirled her off the wall to hug her against his side, and lovers, walked to the exit of the alley. Thane tilted his head against her temple, Lana closing her eyes as his fingers, warm, went up her wrap.</p><p>“This is not what I expected Cerberus to dress you in, let alone your father.”</p><p>“It has amps,” she said, turning the arm over to expose a circular disc between her elbow and wrist. “It innervates with my dark energy to strengthen the output.”</p><p>Thane held her wrist, studying the tech built into the fabric.</p><p>“How did you know that?”</p><p>“My dad built the prototype for suits long ago. I remember seeing him draw one.”</p><p>“Were you close with your father?”</p><p>Lana blinked, squeezing her brow. She shook her head.</p><p>“When I was young, I was very close with him. Then when I went to join the Alliance and follow in his footsteps—“ She remembered Kolyat saying the same thing —“he got very upset with me and it damaged our relationship.” She wet her lips. “I now know why.”</p><p>Images of Batarians, Humans, looked over their bunkers at her in the darkness of their hideaway, red dirt on the floor. Blood everywhere.</p><p>“Thane, I did something that I need to tell you about because I know it’s going to affect us if I hide it.”</p><p>Thane stopped her walking and put both arms around her waist, hugging her to him. They were at the end of the alley. Flowers could be seen poking from the edges of vases.</p><p>“My father told me,” she looked down at the V of his neck, where bloomed his tebris in red folds, “the Alliance sent me and my marines to Torfan. . . To kill rebels fighting the Hegemony. I didn’t know. I was only told they were raiders and mercs. Not. . . The truth. . .”</p><p>His eyelids fluttered. She was looking down between them.</p><p>“I killed innocent people fighting against. . . Enslavement. . . I’m just a tool being used all this time. . . Even before Foundations got their hands on me. . .”</p><p>He slid his palms up against her cheeks and kissed her. She didn’t expect it.</p><p>“You have been lied to,” he said when he pulled away, “but you are not to blame, Lana.” Her eyes seeped into his. Thane looked intensely at the hurt he saw. “Your body is only a weapon. You were in a different type of battle sleep, directed by those who used you as their arm. You are <em>not</em> at fault.”</p><p>“I butchered people, Thane.”</p><p>“Lana, much of what I’ve done may pale against your powers, but I have done terrible things, too. My mind has always been separate from my body, performing the work commanded by others. . . Until Irikah awoke me. . . And her killers.”</p><p>“I just think. . . I don’t want to be like Stiv Kay,” she suddenly said.</p><p>Thane furrowed his brow scales. “Why? Why would you say that? You’re not like Stiv Kay. Far from.”</p><p>“Because I was hired to kill innocents. . . To send a message to the others. . . Those rebels had families, Thane.”</p><p>“Lana,” Thane bent his head to hers, fingers tightening around her waist, “you could <em>never</em> be <em>remotely</em> associated to the likes of Stiv Kay.” He held her gaze, willing her to not look away. “Lana, you know your heart. . . And so do I believe in you.”</p><p>He caught her hands up and kissed her knuckles. Lana spontaneously grabbed his fringe and pulled his head forward, planting a kiss on his mouth. His arms crossed over her back, turning Lana, hair swaying.</p><p>“There you are,” a voice said from behind.</p>
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<a name="section0126"><h2>126. Chapter 126</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the overton from the café. Lana groaned.</p><p>In addition, Kalia had them in the aim of his pistol.</p><p>“Who <em>is</em> this guy?”</p><p>The pistol was hidden beneath the jacket panel of his right hip. He had a very determined expression on his face, which turned an inch to see Lana in her new attire. He whistled.</p><p>“Did you <em>actually</em> just whistle at me?” She took a step forward.</p><p>Removing his hand from the left pocket, Kalia waved for Lana to separate from Thane, who stiffened, shaking his head at the overton.</p><p>“Kalia, I know you’re angry—“</p><p>The Drell laughed and rubbed the back of his head.</p><p>“Been a while since the old pincher was used on me. I still got a headache,” his expression darkened, “but my biology will let me recover. No, Krios, I’m not angry. I’m just focused. You’re going to take a break from your sight-seeing to come to the Jehush. I don’t know why you were down there, but if I see Hea, I’ll give him a special greeting too. Now tell your pretty Alien friend that if she uses her biotics to defend you, I’ve got her covered and it would be unpleasant. Then get in the pod.” He tipped his crests to the right. Lana and Thane both saw the black vessel waiting in hover mode before the stores right of the alley.</p><p>“Lana,” Thane looked to her gaze, “no biotics. I would not take Kalia for a bluff.”</p><p>Kalia’s left hand moved to the Quell9 in his grip as Lana replied, “He’s not going anywhere with you. I bet I can beat you to that trigger.”</p><p><em>I’m counting on it,</em> thought Kalia, watching Lana’s body permeate dark energy in an amplified ripple. <em>Must be the fancy suit she’s got on, enhancing that shimmer.</em> His hand skimmed over the right barrel of the semiautomatic, releasing a well-oiled latch with his dual digits and using his third finger to lift a small inch-wide diameter tube into line with the sights. Slightly cocking the gun left and aiming at Lana, he depressed the trigger as a rippling wall projected towards him, blurring her from his sight.</p><p>But he didn’t need to see her.</p><p>Thane’s body went rigid as the wall of air reversed, slamming into Lana and throwing her through a storefront.</p><p>“Dark energy redirector,” Kalia replied to Thane’s look of shock. He turned his face to the lover. “Now get in that skypod and I won’t use it on her again. In my defense, I did warn her.”</p><p> </p><p>Lana didn’t know what hit her, except that she was upside down in a store between an aisle end and a wall of glass doors. Small packs of food piled around her, sliding off with the sound of hard corner clatter and the crinkle of paper. She shook her head, reeling from the plow that had just lifted her through glass algae and ceramic paneware. Pushing herself up in time to hear the soft electronic whir of a skypod whispering off, she staggered through the middle of the aisle and gathered her wits, clambered over the short wall of the store into the walkway out front.</p><p>
  <em>That asshole just shot me. . . I think. . . Thane!</em>
</p><p>She turned to Hallmar’s Key only a few hundred yards away.</p><p>
  <em>Kolyat said his uncle’s an overton. He has pull. Maybe. . .</em>
</p><p>Hair whipping behind her, she generated a sprint and made for the wild and colorful throngs. Quoyle, Feron, or Kolyat were the most accessible options for her to help Thane. One of them might be able to intervene on what Kalia had in mind, and she was not about to lose Thane to some over-scrutinizing arm of law.</p><p>
  <em>Damn it!</em>
</p><p>She leapt over three steps, down into a wider thoroughfare, dodged low-flying traffic, and continued on at top exertions until she came to the perimeter of the festival. It was slow going from there, but Lana was determined to make her way through instead of around.</p><p>Foreign faces glanced her way, some staring in sudden anger and disbelief at the rude woman barreling through their lines and performers. Her hair fell wildly in her face as she pushed and wrestled through the thick throngs, full of hard, toned bodies and difficult to move. Twice she was hit in the face by a flying finger. Lana grit her teeth and ignored the painful licks that caught her offguard, leaving welts on her skin and limbs, catching her hair.</p><p>A colorful wrap of red, pink, and blue blinded her and she slashed down with her right arm, disturbing the performer.</p><p>The drellahna was incensed. She responded to this Alien’s audacity and barbarism by pressing Lana away, only instead of a warding shove, the impact of the dancer’s strength upon Lana’s unbalanced body sent her rolling from the drellahna’s angry speech.</p><p>Lana came to a tumbling stop in a space that widened, and she learned as she pushed herself up off her stomach, staggering two steps forward, that she was facing a wall of irate Drell who had seen her disrupt the drellahna’s dancing. Lana tried to pass through them, but a rough arm with green skin and brown sleeve shoved her, accompanied by rapid syllables. In no way did the tone sound willing to understand her need.</p><p>“I have to get to the Key!” she shouted. Another Drell pushed her, threatening to topple her balance.</p><p>Lana flared her dark energy.</p><p>This had the undesirable reaction of involving more bystanders. Many yelled in alarm, and outrage, at her hostile display of biotics. Five Drell ignited with their own dark energy output and moved. Lana prepared to fight. <em>This party’s not going to end well,</em> she regrettably thought as a Drell with an orange face advanced on her with brilliant silver blue light replacing his black glare.</p><p>
  <em>“No!”</em>
</p><p>The heavy slap of feet. Quoyle’s bent back was to her, having jumped between Lana and her first challenger. His slick back blocked her view of the Drell with the orange face. She could see arms and muscles flexing with violent gestures, rapid words being uttered at the crowd. Quoyle’s navy blue and red neck muscles twisted as he craned left and right. He turned, naked chest of navy, crimson, magenta, and lime baring towards her, but his eyes were fixated on the dangerous revelers around them, still swapping words with the Drell in an ethnic tongue. Lana felt the presence of encroachers suddenly at her sides and quickly tore her gaze off Quoyle’s swelling tebris to see Feron’s bare blue shoulder on her left and Kolyat’s tiger striped blue and black chest on her right.</p><p>They formed a triangle around her, letting the cohen establish order.</p><p>Lana tensed as Kolyat gripped the back of her neck and bound his fingers in a fist with her hair. He began to pull tight, and moved her forward with his other hand. As he half-shoved, half-ran her through the crowd, Feron keeping abreast on her left, Kolyat lowered his mouth to her ear and spoke directly to her.</p><p>“Keep moving! You break from me, they tear you apart!”</p><p>He didn’t ask where his father was. He knew there was something wrong. Before questions could be asked, they needed to get Lana safe. The whole festival could turn into a free for all over a single offensive Human. As they fled the threatening circle of revelers and performers, the cohen in the middle reached into the rear pocket of his trouser and threw up a badge in his fist. The angry faces closed around him, swallowing Quoyle.</p>
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<a name="section0127"><h2>127. Chapter 127</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Strang stretched his palms and looped both arms over his head. He gazed through the kella display at the office through his doors, enjoying the sight of his workers keeping productive. His mustache scratched his corner mouth as his lips swerved into a grin, thinking of Donnel putting his greasy little gears to work.</p><p>
  <em>The man will be useful. Udina’s always been able to keep a secret and act the line of a neutral party. Quelling the fact that Lana may be alive with a conspiracy she’s died will bring focus onto Earth. The Star of Terra medal could have two cuts: emblazon those who are in love with what she represented, and discourage Will and Saren from further pursuit. Can’t have my little girl distracted with zealous ex-husbands keen on silence. And I need her focused.</em>
</p><p>He leaned forward, grin replaced by frown as he unhooked fingers around the back of his neck. Without removing his eyes from what he saw through the doorframe on a large display, the smiling green and black face of a love interest, his left hand slid the tablet over with the images of the Reaper. His eyes dropped as he began flipping through images on Eden Prime. He stopped on one before a silver pillar sloping back from its base and jutting to the sky.</p><p>
  <em>This beacon no longer exists, does it? No. . . What if another beacon held similar images? Or more. . . A message? Would Lana be averse to using it again? It only killed her twice over the first time. What if. . .</em>
</p><p><em>“The beacons are interactive. Some are more powerful than others.”</em> A woman with long hair and wide oriental eyes looked at him, blinking her jades. <em>“Benezia said it was possible for Humans to interact with the beacons, but they would have to be very strong of mind and spirit.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“You’re not thinking of going, are you?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I am.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The Asari are adapted to this. Their constitutions are different. . . It is the one time I will say a race is genetically superior to Humans.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Didn’t you want to open the doors to Humanity? To its complete, fully-conscious potential. . . Strang?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yes. . . But not at risk of you.”</em>
</p><p><em>“It’s too late, Strang.” </em>Her fine chin lifted.<em> “You’ve already lost me to Donnel. The only reason we’re still together is because of Layn. And she’s gone now. A grown woman.”</em></p><p>Perhaps, if Martha were still alive somewhere, she might hear the news of Lana’s death and come forth from wherever she had gone. <em>The beacons had to be connected to the Reaper somehow. Why else be on Eden Prime? They must be mediums for communication. If Martha could have. . . I could find her that way. . . Find Saren, find the Reaper, find another beacon. . .</em></p><p>Strang ran fingers through his hair and stood. The chair quietly rolled back as he walked around the desk and into the larger office with his agents.</p><p>“Melodi,” he directed his gaze to the woman who paused her conferring with two colleagues, “take a break and watch the news for a while. We’re pulling attention to Lana, dead, and I need monitoring of a galactic reaction. Please divert Communications to surveillance of this and keep an eye out for the term, ‘Layn’, in both vocal and text usage.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0128"><h2>128. Chapter 128</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The back of Kalia’s neck had two columns of blue diamonds traveling from the top of his head into the rise of his collar. He was exposed above the pod seat in front of Thane, who was considering the Drell’s change of wear.</p><p>“I see you had a chance to don something different, Kalia,” Thane said, shifting into a more ready position in the back.</p><p>Kalia glanced at his clothes, hands moving from the skypod’s manuals. The autopilot was in gear.</p><p>“I don’t recall. Why are you so suddenly interested in my clothing?” He craned around, putting his elbow over the seat. He was dressed in a black shirt under the jacket. Thane saw a nub sticking out the canal of his teness, hidden but not so well it could be undetected by one sitting behind Kalia. “You need some clothes for yourself?” He chuckled, raising his left arm to settle the Quell9 pistol on the top of the seating. He aimed it at Thane, but he was not sighting it with his own eyes. “Thane, Thane, Thane. . . What are we going to do with you. . .”</p><p>“I believe the reason you have made me hostage on this trip, beforehand using that gun and its power on someone I care very much for—trust that I won’t dismiss the offense—you had some questions regarding Clyde Trumhall.”</p><p>“Yes, that’s the thing.” Kalia hummed, thoughtful. “Clyde’s dead, and so are a number of Drell and Hanar. A lot was wasted because you decided to take him out with your hands and put him from our misery before we could use him for the rest of his information. Did you happen to use vicers on him like you did on Stiv Kay?”</p><p>Thane straightened. “Kalia,” he narrowed his eyes, “you have something in your ear. What are you listening to. . . Or to whom?”</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He retracted the actual hammer of the pistol and raised this. “How about I blow a hole through your head, Thane? Think your pretty girlfriend would still appreciate you then? I wonder if you two ever argue. . . Maybe I’ll be doing her a favor—”</p><p>Thane’s arm shot out, binding to Kalia’s elbow and the other to his wrist as the pistol fired, lodging a hole in the expensive seating behind. The pad made a dull hiss with the sound of air leaking, the passage of the bullet having cleared the skypod. Cranking down over the seat, Thane levered on Kalia’s arm, dislocating the shoulder, which was no simple task as the muscles protecting the ball joint were thick and strong.</p><p>Thane was stronger.</p><p>He drove the bone of his elbow into Kalia’s tebris twice, forcing the Drell to relieve his grip on the Quell9. Kalia held on despite his shoulder being loosened and struggled with Thane to pry each other’s hand free of the weapon. Thane headbutted Kalia’s temple, the Drell snarling and climbing over the front seat to put his big bulk on top of his adversary in back.</p><p>“Clyde Trumhall sends his regards from Hekla, Krios,” Kalia sneered, bearing hard into Thane’s chest with his injured shoulder and freeing the gun with his right hand. “Time for interrogation is over. You can rest with Irikah.”</p><p>He managed to fire another round, grazing Thane’s hip. Unfazed by the sudden pain lancing through his skin, Thane disappeared into silent battle mode, feeling nothing, remembering everything about training, that his only objective was to kill the present threat with whatever means necessary.</p><p>A part of him held that Kalia should stay alive.</p><p>“All you had to do was answer some questions—but maybe you should have asked Clyde them instead. Did you know he had a brother?”</p><p>Thane began ramming his knee into Kalia’s abdomen, hands gripping the overton’s shirt to hold him. The power in his thrusts was bone jarring, bruising with only a few inches of space to extend and reflex.</p><p>Summoning his strength, Thane exerted energy into forcing Kalia onto the right side and pinning the Drell on the blood slick seats between both knees. His eyes sought the tebris, the whorl of teness channeling down into an ear drum, and Thane shoved his third finger into the Drell’s ear. He started to pry at a hard edge hidden behind one of the stiff folds lending to the acoustics of the internal structure. He punched Kalia as the Drell began to push upwards, keeping his neck and chin tight to prevent Thane from inflicting an earlier tactic of ending consciousness with a pressure point. Kalia also turned his head to prevent Thane’s fingers from going deeper into the teness. Thane cracked him again. The arm still holding the Quell9 was pinned under Kalia’s body, while his top shoulder was near useless with the swelling of the dislocation.</p><p>“Who do you work for,” Thane demanded, driving his palm into the throat and jaw against the Drell’s swelling tebris. Kalia began to accede to Thane’s overwhelming strength and control. Thane kept digging at the teness, fingernail repeatedly catching and slipping under the bottom of the ear’s object. It seemed to sink deeper, burrowing. “I’m going to give you a chance to answer, and then I will <em>rip</em> this thing from your ear no matter the repercussions. <em>Who</em> do you work for?”</p><p>Kalia only growled and spit under Thane’s increasing pressure. Beneath him, Kalia bent his wrist and directed the barrel of the Quell9 towards Thane, but the attentive assassin twisted fast and punched the wrist with a numbing blow that deadened the grip on the gun. He quickly replaced his palm against Kalia’s throat, tebris raising to swell around the fingers of stone.</p><p>“I am your superior in strength, combat, and skill. Do not test me. Do you work for the Illusive Man?”</p><p>Thane contemplated killing Kalia, not only for trying to kill him, but for what he had done to Lana. There was a voice in his head, insisting he not.</p><p>So instead of breaking Kalia’s neck with a squeeze, Thane drove his fingernail into the bottom of Kalia’s ear, hooked and buried his nail in the tissue, and raked upwards.</p><p>Kalia screamed, a terrible, bloody sound in the interior of the pod. Thane was not paled. He kept Kalia pinned as he stared at the black drum of a cylinder with a bloody wire threading from its bottom, flicking as though it were alive. He bound his fingers over it in his palm and checked Kalia, who had stilled beneath him. The chest rose and fell, deep with breaths.</p><p>Thane removed himself from the overton’s form and climbed over the front seats, taking respite in the navigation chair. He leaned against the door bar and stared at Kalia over the edge of bench, lying unconscious. Thane’s gaze drifted to his hand, opening his palm to examine the peg with its thin whisker of a black wire coiling and folding around itself. He opened his vest liner and slid the pill of a device into a pocket with a zipper to keep it secure, then attended to the flesh wound at his right hip. He removed a syringe of medigel from another pocket, and this he held over the wound through his pant tear and exerted a finger press to deliver cooling gel into the deep scratch. He waited a minute for the gel to set and heal, watching Kalia in back for signs of recovery.</p><p>Realizing the Quell9 was where it was in the rear seating, Thane lengthened his body to stretch over the seatback and seek it on the floor. His fingers found and bound about a thick pebbled handle. He drew it to him and studied the contraption attached to its side. There was a slick of blood on the surface of the gun’s strange little tube. Thane removed a cloth from another pocket in his pant lining and cleaned the gun, turning it over.</p><p>
  <em>A redirector. . . This might come in useful, but where would Kalia get his hands on one? I’ve never heard of this and I know most weapons. . .</em>
</p><p>His gaze turned from the Quell9’s modification, what he suspected held the tech to ‘redirect’ Lana’s dark energy and use it against her, to the green and blue diamonds of the overton’s face as Kalia groaned and attempted to remove himself from the seat.</p><p>Grabbing his left shoulder in a hiss, good hand letting go to reach for the injured teness, Kalia felt immense pain in his neck as well and could not decide on one site to settle on first to ponder. His eyes opened, finding himself faced with the very dour expression of an aggrieved Drell behind a fat gun with barrel pointed to him, a round scope of dark glass like Thane’s obsidian eyes docked to its right grip.</p><p>“Krios?” Kalia, confused and in pain, furrowed his brow scales with anxiety. “What are you doing?”</p><p>“Intriguing,” said the assassin, who lowered his new Quell9. “I have some questions to ask you, Kalia.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0129"><h2>129. Chapter 129</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana took three more running steps before she grabbed Kolyat’s wrist and hung, picking up her feet to weigh his arm down with her weight. He slowed and stopped, staring at her as she fired at him with her luxe green eyes, dark eyebrows bent in determination. Feron ran a few steps ahead and skidded to a stop, turning to stare in lack of understanding.</p><p>“What are you doing?” asked Kolyat.</p><p>Lana lowered her feet to the reeds before the stairs to the key.</p><p>“We’re not leaving him behind.”</p><p>“Quoyle?” Kolyat bent his scales. “Lana, he’s a <em>cohen</em>. This is what he does.”</p><p>“He’s a cohen or not, he’s by himself in that crowd and those were pissed off Drell with biotics.”</p><p>“Lana, there are two things here we need to do: one, get you inside the key, and two, where the Hell is my father? Do you two ever stick together for longer than an hour outside the Villetta?”</p><p>“Some overton’s got your father. He wanted questions. He shot me with something and I ended up through a window.” She blinked, torn between two Drell and her own safety. “Can you contact your uncle? See if he can help your father?”</p><p>“If it’s an overton, he shouldn’t be using force on an Alien,” Feron stated, stepping into them and looking from Lana to Kolyat. “It could be something else.”</p><p><em>Shit</em>, Kolyat thought.</p><p>The crowd had a change in noise as music continued to play but the clatter of voices seemed to escalate into a tension. A wave of heads could be seen back where they had left Quoyle, Lana and Kolyat turned as a smile lit Feron’s face.</p><p>Lana gasped, “What is <em>that</em>?”</p><p>The color on the plaza was vivid and entrancing with its blur and coordination of festive Drell that no one, not even Lana, had paid attention to what was above the city protected by glass. For the most part, it was the blue silver and green of a distant layer of sky obscured by water. Now though, the faces in the city were turning upward to the first glow of light that reminded Lana of the aurora borealis she had seen over the poles on Earth. It moved just as wavy, but it came from the left of the city, traveling ghostly over the protected holly.</p><p>“It’s the first crest,” Feron said in answer to Lana’s question. His brow scales furrowed. “They’re early.”</p><p>The first crest were Hanar rising from whatever depths they left. They moved like fish in a school, luminous eerie colors winding, melding, casting over the holosphere. A pall fell over the festival as the musicians stopped their beating and pipes. Drell and drellahna looked up at school of Hanar moving over the dome.</p><p>“There’s so many,” Lana whispered.</p><p>The school shoaled together, swirling over Nauza in a pass that almost felt as though they were greeting their future symbiotes, the Drell, and peace fell over the anger as awe took its place in the revelers’ minds. The Hanar crisscrossed over the glass dome and a living tunnel was formed, gracefully writhing its way from Nauza into the external city of Hanar and sealife nestled around it.</p><p>Up in the key, Jacob Taylor and Thekla leaned against the rail, watching the first cresting glow by. Their tension at watching the fight below between Quoyle and several revelers, the flight of Lana, Feron, and Kolyat through the crowds, eased with the pause of the chaos. The door opened behind them as Garrus stepped out, stopped, and dropped his jaw, both mandibles spreading wide.</p><p>“Spirits. . .”</p><p>Thekla turned and grinned. “The first to arrive among the neophytes from the deep. Their timing is quite convenient.”</p><p>Above their room, alighting on top of the key, Thane ended the drive and opened his door, holding the rim as he stepped out and gazed up at the bioluminescent twists and turns of a body thickening with more bodies, swirling about the holosphere and departing as slowly as they came. His smile was a flicker as he wished Lana were there with him to witness it, and <em>where</em> she was made him ill with not knowing. He had to at least see that David was where they had left him and the crew together.</p><p>He quickly shut the door and walked around the back of the skypod to open Kalia’s side, helping the Drell to stand as he was still injured by Thane’s beating. The battered overton looked terrible with his bleeding teness, swelling face, and the deformity of his dislocation in his shoulder. Thane helped him stand out of the vessel and supported him over to the lift, which they awaited to take down to the floor of Cerberus, Thane’s crewmates, and David.</p><p> </p><p>Quoyle appeared, squeezing through the last of the throngs to discover Lana, Feron, and Kolyat waiting at the top of the stairs of the key. Lana saw him first, connecting with his face. He had a bloody lip and a cut above his eyeridge.</p><p>But he smiled when he saw her, and Lana found relief in seeing he was alright.</p><p>“Thank the Enkindlers we have Hanar,” Quoyle said, stepping forward to join them. “Are you alright?” he asked to Lana.</p><p>“We were going to go back and help you.”</p><p>He laughed at her, patting her shoulder with a bloody hand. “You would have been—“</p><p>“Torn apart, I heard,” Lana said, cutting him off. She focused on the dark eyes staring back at her, a trickle of blood falling off his eyeridge. “Thane’s been kidnapped.”</p><p>His face lost its serenity. “By whom?” He scales bent downward. “Is that why you were running and riling up the party?”</p><p>“Some overton named Kalia. He’s got some weapon with him. I know it’s powerful, but not lethal. . . Just kind of threw me a few yards. I don’t know what happened to him afterwards. I tried to hit him with dark energy, but I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I got up and he and Thane were gone. I think they took a skypod. One of the black ones you drove us in.”</p><p>Quoyle turned her shoulder and goaded her onward, Kolyat and Feron turning away from the Hanar above laying siege on the focus of the city’s inhabitants.</p><p>“You’re hurt,” Lana said, feeling motherly as she did so.</p><p>“As are you. Have you seen your face?”</p><p>Lana touched her lip and cheek suddenly, pulling away a stain of blood.</p><p>“It’s a few knicks and bruises, Lana,” Feron said beside her, his eyes scanning over her face.</p><p>“I guess that makes sense, running through all those Drell after being thrown through a wall. I got hit a few times by flailing limbs. I didn’t think it did anything besides piss me off.”</p><p>Quoyle went over to the concierge desk, snapping his fingers and passing an order through his subharmonics to the Drell preparing their clothes. The staff handed their vests and jackets to the cohen. Not bothering to dress, he passed Kolyat and Feron’s their paraphernalia and then the three escorted Lana into the lift. As they started to put their arms through their sleeves, they watched the Prothean characters remain on the level where they intended to go. When it lingered for more than a few seconds, Kolyat and Lana glanced at each other. Feron and Quoyle stared at the Prothean characters above the lift doors. Suddenly, the symbols changed, indicating the lift’s descent.</p><p>“Could be just another guest using the floor. . . Right?” Feron asked.</p><p>“Couldn’t be,” Quoyle replied.</p><p>“Maybe it’s Thane,” Lana said, hopeful.</p><p>The doors opened and they entered. Lana stepped into the center rear and turned, noticing Quoyle had filled position to the right of her shoulder. Feron was to her left. Kolyat took point in front of her, adjusting his C-Sec vest.</p><p>
  <em>How odd. . . It’s as if they’re synchronizing somehow. Must be some type of training.</em>
</p><p>She turned her eyes to Quoyle, and detected a vibration among the tebris of his throat. She watched it pause, restart anew, not realizing he was communicating to the other two. His face inched in rotation, suddenly looking intently at her. His eyes narrowed.</p><p>A bead of blood was threatening to drop off the corner of his mouth onto his coat.</p><p>She thrust her thumb up across her body and wiped the blood off with a firm press and tilt. She then jammed her arms stiffly at her sides, hands in fists. She cleared her throat.</p><p>“Sorry, it was bothering me,” Lana replied, staring ahead at Kolyat’s black vest and ignoring Quoyle’s startled stare.</p><p>Feron glanced over at them.</p><p>“Thank you,” Quoyle said.</p><p>She could sense his eyes on her, and when he looked away, she breathed out, rubbing her thumb and index together to smear his blood away.</p>
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<a name="section0130"><h2>130. Chapter 130</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thane leaned back and closed the door to the room as the lift’s doors slid apart. He turned.</p><p>Kolyat’s face opened with relief and his whole body seemed to relax. He stepped out the lift towards his father, his eyes dropping to Thane’s right hip. Fixated on the injury, Kolyat turned his body to show Lana his father. Her face, like Kolyat’s had, opened with a silent O of her lips and she started forward, passing Kolyat on her left. Thane’s brow scales twitched with the sight of her cuts and welts. He stepped towards her, opening up to take her in his arms and hold her, pressing his head against her hair and smelling her with a deep intake of breath through his nose. As his hands flexed and fingers dug into her back, his eyes looked to the occupants exiting the lift. Feron was nodding his chin lightly, stepping up behind Kolyat. Quoyle passed both Feron and Kolyat on their right, his expression one of concern.</p><p>“What happened to you?” demanded Quoyle.</p><p>Lana shifted in Thane’s arms as he stared at Quoyle and answered, “I was shot by Overton Kalia after he attacked Lana with an advanced piece of weaponry and forced me into a pod. What happened to your face? You look like you’ve been in a brawl.”</p><p>Resting her hand against his chest and collar, Lana looked at Thane, “I had to run through the dancers to find Kolyat. Quoyle stopped me from fighting everyone, but he also prevented everyone from fighting me.”</p><p>Thane turned his face from Lana back to Quoyle. “Thank you.”</p><p>Quoyle nodded once. Kolyat stepped up beside him, pointedly gazing at his father.</p><p>“So what happened? How did you get back here?”</p><p>Returning his gaze to Lana, he stroked her hair affectionately and examined her facial injuries. “When Kalia tried to kill me, I restrained him, but not before he managed to graze my leg. I noticed he had a device in his ear. Intent on subduing him, I managed to pin him down and remove said device. It had the effect of rendering him unconscious for a time and I recovered the gun as well as the skypod.” He tucked one of Lana’s strands behind her right ear. She was staring at him.</p><p>“Restrained him. . . But not. . .” She let her eyes encourage him on. Thane nodded. “Where is he.”</p><p>“Now, Lana,” Thane spoke softly while tightening his arm around her and raising his left digits of his hand as if to ward off her temper, “I know you’re angry, but look at me, look at me. . .” He waited until she stopped leaning around him to see through the closed door at his back. Her lips were pursed, angry, eyes green, wide, livid. Thane touched his collar with his free hand. “I am okay. I need you. . . To go to David, right now, while I take Quoyle inside to check on Kalia. Please, Lana.”</p><p>“I can’t believe you brought him back,” she said, resentful, as she shirked out of his powerful grip and stood in place, reluctant to leave. Her glare went to the door behind him. One last ireful stare at Thane, she glanced to Quoyle before turning and heading for the door by which Thekla stood. Thane’s head turned to follow her, then pivoted back on his neck to look at Quoyle, whose eyes left from Lana’s back to focus on Thane’s.</p><p>“She’s a lover. She won’t be angry with you for long.”</p><p>Thane’s brow scales dipped over his eyes, studying Quoyle atilt as the cohen spoke these words.</p><p>“Kolyat, Feron,” Thane glanced at the two young Drell, “please go with Lana and remain with her and David.”</p><p>Quoyle glanced left as the pair passed him.</p><p>Now only Thane and Quoyle stood facing each other in the hall. Thane tilted his head to the door behind him.</p><p>“Shall we?”</p><p>Quoyle gestured with his right hand that Thane lead. “You first.”</p><p>Thane grinned, his hands clasped behind his back. “Quoyle, humor me. I have no reason to hurt you.”</p><p>Neither one nor the other moved.</p><p>Quoyle raised his chin, covering his hands together in front of him. He took a step forward, Thane stepping back to let him reach the door and go inside. As he followed Quoyle, Thane paused on the threshold and looked down the hall. Thekla and Jacob Taylor were watching. Thane nodded at them, they in turn, and then entered the overton’s room.</p>
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<a name="section0131"><h2>131. Chapter 131</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana turned from the door as it closed and found everyone in silence. She quickly looked from face to face, each stare filled with surprise, shock maybe.</p><p>“What? Why are you all looking at me like that?”</p><p>Tali’s visor popped from the doorway to the bedroom, carrying David with her. A gasp issued from her suit.</p><p>“Shepard! What happened to you?”</p><p>Garrus leaned forward from Lana’s right, his mandibles hanging.</p><p>“What’s that on your—“ His eyes grew wide, the maw and mandibles opening, too, and then straightened. “It’s just your face.”</p><p>Lana shook her head as the others chuckled and she pushed his armor away by her hand, crossing in front of Miranda and Kelly as she went to David, Tali, and Kenn who was poking his helmet from around the frame, too, Tali’s moving to meet Lana.</p><p>The door opened again next to Garrus, turning his horns to see Kolyat’s teal and black face come through, followed by Feron’s multiple hues. Feron pushed Kolyat out of the way as he laid eyes on David, Garrus stepping backwards to avoid being knocked into.</p><p>“Davey!” he said, grinning expansively and raising his arms in a big show in front of the boy being held now by Lana. David’s face turned from looking at his mother to Feron, and the two lit in matched enthusiasm.</p><p>“Fern!”</p><p>“Now we talked about that,” Feron chided, wagging his blue conjoined fingers at him, “It’s <em>Fe-ron.</em>” He spread his hands to take David from Lana.</p><p>“Babywhore,” Lana said, cradling David protectively to her neck by her hand on the back of his head, “I just got him. Wait your turn.” She looked at Kelly with orange stains on her shirtstanding next to Miranda. “How was feeding?”</p><p>She flattened the air with opposite swipes of outstretched fingertips. “No problem. He ate everything, and I ran some scans and the drug’s processing out of his system. There was one more diaper if you want to look at it.”</p><p>“Could I see it?”</p><p>Garrus shook his head, lifting his mandibles. “Humans and their obsession for staring at shit.”</p><p>“Language,” Joker suddenly called from the bedroom.</p><p>Lana turned from an exposed diaper’s contents held by Kelly and leaned past Tali to look through the doorway. “Where have you been?”</p><p>His face tilted up, curls poking from under a cap. Graine was on her back next to him seated on the edge, chewing on a tentacle of the Hanar doll while Joker’s fingers were tugging it to mess with her.</p><p>“Checking out the new ship.” He went from straight-face to a toothy grin, his eyes lighting. “<em>The Interceptor</em>,” he said with a dramatically deep voice, then, “It’s awesome,” he quipped, adding in a cool shrug.</p><p>She stepped further into the room, David on her hip reaching behind her for Feron.</p><p>“You got to see the ship first?”</p><p>“I’m Human.” He shrugged again.</p><p>“And you’re the pilot,” she added, lowering her eyelids.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s important.” He nodded. His eyes squinted at her. “What happened to you?”</p><p>Lana looked back at Tali. “I went dancing with Thane.”</p><p>Kenn and Tali raised their hands to their mouthpieces, straightening in shock.</p><p>“That’s not what happened.” Kolyat bumped Lana with his shoulder and glanced at David, who redirected his grasping fingers to the new face. “You and my dad ran off and then get yourselves abucted, at least my dad did, and then <em>you</em> came back and tried to pick a fight with everyone at the festival. You should go clean up. Let Feron babysit for a while.”</p><p>Feron plucked David up and held him aloft, David giggling with glee as he walked back into the other room.</p><p>Lana set her hands on her hips and looked at Kolyat, who shrugged, a little smile on his lips. She turned to Joker. “So the Interceptor, huh?”</p><p>“It’s a beauty.” He waved his hand, letting Graine kick and scratch at the Hanar doll while Wrex took up a big red chair that matched his head plate by the bed end. “Plenty of room, guns, training arena, you name it, Cerberus thought of it. And it’s got a computer system that talks and takes care of logistics, advanced alerts for magnetic storms, passive projectiles, quantitative anomalies, and a sexy robot voice option.”</p><p>“Fantastic,” Lana arched her eyebrow, “for the guy whose got his own server full of porn.”</p><p>“I’ve cut back now that I’ve got kids.”</p><p>She snorted, thudding Kolyat in the vest with her elbow.</p><p>“Did you see what my da—<em>they</em>—have in store for daycare?”</p><p>“Ask the redhead, but yeah, they got some lab and nursery set up for keeping Graine and David entertained and separate. There’s more crew on board for a bunch of departments all functioning inside. You’ll have to talk to that Taylor guy about sharing control.” Joker thumbed towards the door with a twist in his lips.</p><p>“Yeah, I met him. Briefly.” She glanced at Kolyat.</p><p>“You ready for that shower, Commander? You should really get cleaned up so we can put some ice on your face.”</p><p>“Shepard,” Wrex rumbled, “how do you go to a party and start a fight without pinging me to come join in?”</p><p>“Sorry, Wrex, it wasn’t really the intention,” she replied as she loosed her arms and walked to the bathroom. Kolyat walked over to Graine and Joker and tried to pick up the Hanar Graine was teething on. He tugged at it, drawing a small growl from Graine’s mouth behind the Hanar body.</p><p>In the other room, Feron and Kelly bent over David sitting on the table and stared at him.</p><p>David looked between the two, waiting.</p><p>First Feron made a silly face, then Kelly mimed in with wiggling fingers and a grin, which David pealed in drips of rabid laughter.</p><p>Garrus looked over at Miranda, who rolled her eyes and looked down at her tablet, typing messages.</p><p>“Where did Thane go?” he suddenly asked, raising his mandibles.</p><p>“There was an altercation with another Drell named Kalia and I imagine they are talking to him in the next room over. I need to arrange pick up for everyone, so sit tight a while longer and we will be leaving the key.”</p><p>There was a thump in the wall behind her just then.</p><p>Miranda turned, her eyes narrowing as she inspected the yellow wall, Feron picking up David by Kelly and Garrus dropping his arms to his sides by the door.</p><p>“What was that?” Miranda asked.</p><p>The wall remained still, the voices in the bedroom still heard, as well as the run of a shower.</p><p>Lana closed her eyes and tasted sea water. She spit it out after swishing it in her mouth, thinking it would at least dry out the cut on her lip with the salt. There was no shampoo or soap, so she bathed in the hot water and found some relaxation from the smell of sea, though it was slightly more the marsh smell she remembered being near large salt water bodies.</p><p>She reached for the handle, a lever to pull down and adjust for hot and cold, and as she touched it, there was a thump beside her right. In the wall.</p><p>She glanced over and stared when she saw one of the smoother façades of the shower stall crack a hairline that ran up. Hair dripping, shower still running, she grabbed her towel and opened the door.</p><p>“Kolyat, check your father,” she ordered from the frame, then closed shut the door to get dressed into the white clothes Cerberus had provided.</p><p>Kolyat glanced at Wrex and Joker. Wrex arose from the chair and walked with the Drell to the other room, Joker glancing at Graine who was already sitting up, alert, and staring behind them at the wall.</p><p>“Maybe we should go to the ship now,” Joker suggested.</p><p>Graine looked at him as he stood and waved for her to follow into the other room. She let her gangly legs down off the bed end, clutching the Hanar doll to her belly.</p><p>The smooth lining of the shower thumped, thumped, and thumped, sending tentacles of cracks upwards, downwards and to the sides in three places. Lana stared at the wall, pulling on her pants and snapping it secure before grabbing her shirt and hauling it over her wet, dripping hair.</p><p>Eyes wide, she stood erect, held her hands out, eyes lighting up with dark energy. She grit her teeth.</p><p>The wall began to crack apart, millions of fingers pulling each piece of splitting masonry from the shower and suspending it in air off to the sides of her. She threw up a secondary barrier to prevent whatever was in the other room from coming through at her, full force.</p><p>But Thane was in there, and if he was trying to get out, then she was going to give him an exit right into her protection.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0132"><h2>132. Chapter 132</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kalia’s blue and green face set framed by the yellow wall behind his head. His eye ridge was swollen, his lip was bleeding, and the left side of his patak had a bump. The black eyes were open, wide pupils flickering randomly.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Lights in the hall, small, round. Halos. Black band, red scalp, no eyes, dark blue patak, yellow chin, red green tebris. Hands in a fist. Looking down. “Get up, Kalia.” Kicks me. Looks up, behind, crouches. “I got something for you.” Hand opens, tosses something on my chest. Black yellow fingers pinch it. Leave a black capsule. Red light blinking, rocks side to side between my chest, rises. One wire, pushes towards me. “Just relax and let it go into your nose.” “What is this—“ It hurts. Try to pull it out! Obstruction, pain, pressure, no. Holding me down. “That’s it, be a good Drell, let it do its work.” “No! Get it out! Get it out!” Searing numbing redding blindness—it hurts—it hurts. It’s over. Calm. Peace. It’s in my head. It’s talking to me. Go find Thane. Get rid of the woman. Take the gun. Use the mod to convert her dark energy. Take Thane. Kill him. Go find the cohen. Kill him. They will all lead to each other. Go find the heads, kill the snake. Kill her. Open up the Archive. Let us in. “Tell Thane my brother says hi.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Thane?” Kalia whispered, his green blue lips moving.</p><p>There was a bureau in front of him. A black little interruption on the surface, between him and the mirror. It rolled.</p><p>A thin line curled out.</p><p>The light, red, pointed at him.</p><p>His eyes closed and he fell backwards on the bed as the little black pill Thane had left on the bureau rolled off, hit the floor and bounced to Kalia’s feet, then unraveled and began to wiggle its way onto his shoe and under the drape of his pant leg.</p><p>Kalia’s eyelids flickered as he shivered.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Hey, look, I’m pissing on him.” “Asshole, stop. Clean him up, shithead, and put your shirt on him. Leaving DNA everywhere. What’s the fucking matter with you?” “Hurry it up. The Altha’s on her way to the festival. We need to be in position for Plan B if this one fails.” “What about Stiv?” “Leave it. They can pin that on Thane. Tell the Abban we’re ready.” “Alright, Kalia, thanks for doing all the work on my brother. Now it’s time to pay back.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Kalia exhaled raggedly as the last tip of a black wire disappeared inside his right nostril, a faint red glow pulsing in the bridge of his nose as a nodule shifted and twitched its way up and then minimized from view. Kalia’s lips let out a low groan as he rolled over onto his left and winced his eyes closed, right arm moving, shifting backward and up as the shoulder hunched and popped. His right hand stretched out across the bed, gripping the edge, and he exhaled. Face relaxing before it twitched twice, the eyelids fluttering open and closed, then shutting again.</p><p>The door slid open, Quoyle softly stepping across the carpet and looking at the Drell in black shirt on the bed, rolled onto his left with his right arm reaching across. He looked asleep, though it was an odd position, his legs bent on the side over the edge and the fingers grasping. He scrutinized the blue and green diamonds of the face, the swelling and cuts. He glanced at Thane as he entered and the door slid closed, securing behind him.</p><p>“You did that to him?”</p><p>“I kept it minimal,” Thane replied, stashing his hands in his pockets and tilting his head to look upon Kalia. “I guess he’s worn out. Kalia? Kalia.”</p><p>The Drell didn’t respond.</p><p>Thane sighed loudly and looked at Quoyle. “The last I saw him was in the hallway outside Stiv’s interrogation chamber. There was Feron and four other cohen. Kalia was alive when I left him unconscious.”</p><p>“You left him unconscious? Why?”</p><p>“Feron came for me about Lana and I didn’t have time nor the patience. So I applied the nura’hala to him and that freed up some hassle.”</p><p>“Can you teach me that?”</p><p>Thane smiled. “No.”</p><p>“Worth asking,” Quoyle said with a tilt of his crests, looking back towards Kalia still sleeping on the bed.</p><p>“Quoyle, forgive me, but did you set up Kalia to do this to me and Lana?”</p><p>“No. I resent that.” Quoyle turned sharply back to Thane and he shifted his body to face the Drell.</p><p>“Kalia said he remembered voices in the hall. There were at least three. Could it have been one of your cohens?”</p><p>Quoyle stood taller, crossing his arms. “No. My cohens do not betray the Altha. They removed Stiv and would have left this one alone because they weren’t supposed to be down there anyways. I don’t know why this overton was there. Interrogation’s a place only for your kind and the Jehush.”</p><p>Thane nodded, clasping his hands behind his back. “I’ll take that professionally.”</p><p>“It wasn’t meant as a slight.”</p><p>“Hmm. . . Kalia also mentioned something about Clyde Trumhall. He wanted me to know that he had a brother and said hello from Hekla. Do you know if Clyde Trumhall had any family relatives?”</p><p>“Trumhall was from the proinnseas. It’s possible, but I don’t see how they would be close. The births are all kept separate and raised in different facilities.”</p><p>“Interesting. Whoever was speaking through Kalia seemed adamant that a brother was involved, which troubles me.”</p><p>“I can see why. . . You tend to piss off siblings.”</p><p>Thane pursed his lips in Quoyle’s observation.</p><p>“Trumhall killed my wife, leading Stiv to commit atrocities against her. I imagine many others suffered because of Trumhall’s decisions. We need Kalia as he has done the most work on nailing down the connections Trumhall had made and what his true intent was in delivering agents to their demise at the hands of others.”</p><p>“Well, we should wake him then, and hopefully you haven’t given him too much brain damage from the beating, it looks like.” Quoyle’s head turned back to Kalia, but Thane cleared his throat and redirected his attention to the bureau, which Thane suddenly took a step forward to and touched, passing Quoyle.</p><p>Kalia’s eyes opened, black and motionless.</p><p>“Speaking of brain damage, I was going to show you what I had to pull out of his teness to make him stop, but it was right here.” Thane ran his hand over the bureau, certain he had left it on top.</p><p>“Losing your memory, Thane?” Quoyle asked.</p><p>“Impossible. Not unless it’s deliberate,” Thane said, dropping to the floor in a crouch and looking down over the dark carpet. Quoyle uncrossed his arms and put his hand on a hip, looking at the assassin feeling around on the floor.</p><p>“You said you pulled it out of his head?”</p><p>Kalia slid his right hand across the bed as he began to sit up and looked into the mirror. Quoyle’s eyes and head raised to see the overton’s reflection moving and gazing up at him.</p><p>“Ah, he’s up,” Quoyle said, dropping his arms and turning.</p><p>Thane stopped, looked up at Kalia as the Drell rose from the bed.</p><p>“Kalia? Did you see where—“</p><p>With frightful force, Kalia shoved the cohen off his feet and into the bureau, shattering mirror glass and rocking the furniture so that the drawers came loose and bounced out from the impact. Quoyle let out a weak groan as Thane rose up and Kalia grabbed the overton’s head, preparing to twist. Thane locked up, sliding one arm behind Kalia’s head and another through his arms to prevent the impending snap by obstructing his movement. Kalia instantly released Quoyle’s head and grabbed Thane’s fist and arm, weighing sideways into him until they both fell. Quoyle slid down to the floor as Kalia turned into Thane, bending to loose from his lock. He wrapped his arms around the assassin’s torso. Thane switched grip, locking his arms under Kalia’s and about his waist, rose up, hauling him away from the stunned cohen to protect him. Kalia began to tighten and Thane broke free, pushing him off before ducking low to come up under his sweeping arms, grabbing his leg to destabilize the overton, but Kalia kicked his leg free and Thane moved higher to latch around him from behind, trying to restrain the Drell’s arms. As they struggled, they moved backwards to the nearside bathroom. A groan came from the floor as Quoyle gathered his senses.</p><p>Kalia forced down on Thane’s ropelike grip, jerking to push the hands apart, then elbowing back, hitting the assassin in his ribs. Each blow punishing now that the big overton was free of the skypod and unhindered by seats. It was nearly an even match what with his size and strength, but Thane was more versatile.</p><p>They stepped over the threshold into the bathroom. Kalia swung right, left, Thane bear-hugging the overton. They stumbled into the shower.</p><p>The glass broke, the rods bent, and Kalia used his weight to slam Thane against the hard surface of the stall. Once, twice, three times. A fourth.</p><p>Thane grunted as the gun in the back of his pants bit painfully into his skin. As Kalia slammed backwards the fourth time, the gun came loose, squeezed out between the smooth wall and Thane, clattering loudly in the bath tub. Thane let go of Kalia to reach for it. The Drell spun, backhanding Thane with a long arm and kicking the gun against the bath tub corner with his shoe.</p><p>Quoyle pushed himself up off the floor, shaking his head. He turned and looked around his shoulder at the bathroom, and saw Kalia flailing into what he thought was Thane.</p><p>As the overton reared up to stomp down on Thane’s knee, Quoyle lunged into him, grappling about his waist and lifting Kalia up, twisting in GrecoRoman style to flip him and slam the Drell down back in the bedroom. Kalia clawed up his skin with demonic ferocity, Quoyle using his weight to push the Drell away from Thane as the wall behind him began to eat itself inwards.</p><p>Thane could feel the charge of dark energy and quickly looked for the gun.</p><p>Kalia rolled, flipping Quoyle with him, and landed on top, loosed a blow into the Drell’s head that made him see stars. He stood up to stride back into the bathroom and grab Thane, dragging him out by the leg.</p><p>Thane aimed the gun at Kalia’s head, hesitated. <em>Don’t kill him.</em></p><p>The door delocked and slid open, Thekla first to enter the room, assess Quoyle on the floor and slow to get up. Kalia was bent upon Thane, grappling with a gun, the assassin on his back with one foot holding the overton at bay. Thekla strode across to grab Kalia, but the Drell let go of Thane to grab Thekla instead and haul him bodily over his shoulder, directly onto the Drell beneath.</p><p>A holster strap became visible under Thekla’s coat. Kalia put his knee down, crushing the cohen against Thane, lifted the jacket, and pulled free the firearm.</p><p>The last of the wall sucked inward, Lana seeing nothing besides broken glass and fallen rods, scuff marks and torn clothes. She could hear the fighting.</p><p>Thane lifted his face above Thekla’s shoulder, staring as Kalia aimed the gun at the cohen’s head.</p><p>Lana stepped through the new hole she had arranged between the broken shower stalls, searching for Thane. She turned her head to the right, dark energy fading back into her eyes as she remembered Kalia’s gun. She stepped carefully over the glass with her bare feet, in and out of the tub onto the bathroom floor.</p><p>Thane smelled her skin and the waft of water from the other bathroom. He cursed at Kalia whose eyes refocused on Thane’s, the gun pointing at the back of Thekla’s head.</p><p>Lana followed the struggle to the right and turned, setting her feet apart among glass. She saw Thane pinned under Thekla, Kalia aiming the gun behind Thekla’s skull.</p><p>Kolyat came through the door, moving quickly with Wrex’s monolithic body following. Quoyle suddenly rose up, blocking Kolyat who put his hands out to steady on the cohen.</p><p>She saw Kolyat staring at her, his black eyes widening. Then Kalia’s head, shoulders, and torso rose, his black eyes and green diamond face filling where Kolyat’s had been.</p><p>The gun came up simultaneously and fired.</p>
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<a name="section0133"><h2>133. Chapter 133</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>High up on a building roof, curved and domed, overlooking the key, a dark figure stood, watching the area below for a sign. He saw it to the left of the plaza, coming in the form of three large Hitomi moving in a circle with a luminous pale Hanar appearing and disappearing among their tentacles and bell-shaped bodies. A group of the strange, long-armed proinnseas Drell were moving in unison with the escort, making way towards the plaza to see the festivities for Nyahir.</p><p>A trill went from his throat, alerting three others to climb higher into separate positions with long guns of a dark finish and high tech scopes.</p><p>He lowered down, kneeling, setting up his own rifle on three stands and raising one to swivel it, focusing on the moving party.</p><p> </p><p>Lana’s eyes opened, green, then glowing white hot. Blood slashed across her skin, her dark hair wet in rivulets of water from the shower and now blood. Her left lips quivered upward into a sneer as her hand came before her face, palm supine, fingers flexed.</p><p>All she saw was Kalia at the end of the gun arm, the rest of the room around him fading black. He lifted slowly into the air, the gun separating from his hand.</p><p>“Everyone. . . Get out of the way.”</p><p>Lana didn’t feel the pulsing heat along the side of her head. A ghostly spray of blood was on the wall behind her, blood staining her shirt. Teeth bared, eyes alight, Lana strove for payback as she shoved a wall of dark energy forward, Kalia moving quickly away from her.</p><p>Kolyat hooked under Quoyle’s armpit and Wrex’s armor, falling backwards and pulling them with him, though Wrex saw Kalia’s body lift into the air and was already moving out of the way. Behind him, Jacob Taylor saw a levitating Drell and wall of rippling energy spreading towards him, and shouted, stepping left and pushing Miranda back, who had come out into the hall with Garrus and the others. Feron retreated into the second room, covering David as everyone turned from the <em>whump!</em> of dark energy, Kalia’s head beaning the top sill of the doorframe and bending forward, leaving a faint spray of blood on the carpet, and carrying on over the railing. He was shortly followed by a racing white uniform, dark wet hair behind her.</p><p>Lana catapulted off the balcony, following after Kalia as she beat him with another swipe of dark energy, pushing him through the tilted glass wall.</p><p>The windows outside shimmered and then burst like a bubble, Kalia’s black shirt going first with his shoulders, Lana’s white uniform stained in blood from her head to her chest hurtling after him.</p><p>Thekla and Thane scrambled up just in time to see the white pants and bare feet disappear beneath the floor of the balcony.</p><p>Lana dove into Kalia’s chest, the black eyes waiting for her, and drove her shoulder against him, flaring white biotics to dazzle the Drell.</p><p>Across the plaza on the upper tiers of the spired building, the four dark Drell looked to the commotion.</p><p>The sound of glass breaking caused most of the festival participants to stare and scatter, some being knocked down and hurt as they cleared outwards, a ripple from a stone that had not quite landed.</p><p>Lana and Kalia fell through lines of wire and ribbon suspending glass orbs, bringing a loose net down of tangling cords, and bioluminescent critters trapped to their demises.</p><p>As the Altha floated among her Hitomi, bobbing and flitting with eagerness to see the dancing, the striking crash drew their attention to the curving wall of the key, lined with glass. The Hitomi, Altha, and proinnseas Drell stopped, tensing at the sudden disturbance. Over Hallmar’s Key plaza, they witnessed the tangle of bodies, glass spraying outwards below the dark and light clothing descending through the air in a hail of glass, snapping wires, ripping paper, and falling orbs of light. The Altha flashed.</p><p>(That is not part of the festivity.)</p><p> </p><p>“Bitch Human!” Kalia cursed, trying to wrest her around as they fell.</p><p>“Payback!”</p><p>Lana forced him to land first, knocking the wind out of both of them as she bounced off his chest and rolled. Having tried to protect herself from the fall with a cushion of mass, she had managed to also prevent Kalia from cracking his skull on impact, but with the technology wiring his body and producing more chemical through him, he would have been relatively unharmed, or at least ignorant of the damage and pain.</p><p>He rolled, landed on his feet, one hand on the ground before him as he looked up at Lana, sprawled on the bricks and lifting her bloody head up.</p><p>Her eyes widened, reflecting the leaping shadow that came down with both fists, and she rolled just in time for Kalia to smash his forearms into the bricks, leaving blood among the cracks.</p><p>He stood and followed her, striding in a semicircle to come to her flank, snatching at her as she scrambled.</p><p>The crowds were hesitant at first, but faces turned to the far left side of the key and began to hedge backwards as Lana and the overton circled each other in the small patch of bricks.</p><p>Throwing out her right arm, she defended from Kalia, lifting him and tossing him away. He landed on his feet, off balance, and she rushed at him, a blur of white blooming energy, driving her shoulder into his chest again. She knocked him down over the bricks and stood up straight, perhaps too fast. The sudden rush of blood made her blink, her head and vision crazily spinning in two different directions. Blood drained from her head, down to her feet, and she nearly threw up.</p><p> </p><p>Thane and Quoyle were at the bottom of the lift of the key, having raced to the platform to take it down to the bottom floor. They waited anxiously, then pressed through the doors into the key lobby, running to make the plaza.</p><p>A Drell on the building opposite trilled and pointed his fingers to the floating escort of Hitomi, three surrounding the delicate, pale luminescence of the Altha Hanar floating among the middle of these. They were making their way towards the fight in the plaza. The proinnseas Drell were formed and fanning out, centering on the two players.</p><p>Kalia strode to Lana as she cursed at her head, trying to slow the spinning. He reached, catching hold of her shoulders, picking her up and winding his head back to crush her skull with the smooth, hard curve of his. Before he could make contact, a shot was fired.</p><p>The side of his head opened up to spray towards the key. Screams rent the air.</p><p>Thane threw himself on top of Lana, dropped beside Kalia as the overton had fallen, spilling his head’s contents across the bricks.</p><p>“Kala, Lana,” Thane breathed, pressing his palm immediately to the hole.</p><p>“Thane?” She reached up to him, trying to see his face.</p><p>“Lana, lay down. You’re bleeding from your head. Kalia shot you, and Quoyle and the proinnseas are trying to subdue an assassination. I need you to protect us. . . Can you concentrate on a barrier?” He hoped it would keep her with him.</p><p>“I think so. . .”</p><p>She closed her eyes, and reached for her center, a calm only she knew because of one other. A little smile played at her lips as she saw herself in a room with her father, who was helping her to form a dome of dark energy around a hamster, making it expand outwards while the critter stilled calmly within.</p><p>Thane pressed his palm firmly against her skull, willing the blood should stop.</p><p>A warmth pervaded around them, expanding every foot outwards, covering Lana and Thane, filling with shimmery colors as Thane stared down into her peaceful face of heaven to him.</p><p>“More, Lana.”</p><p>And she gave it more, as it continued to grow, widening, widening ever outward. It expanded to cover Quoyle, who glanced upwards in amazement as  cohen flocked to him, making their way through the panicked crowds. It covered the strange, long-armed Drell, focusing through it with scopes on backs of long guns targeting the origin of fire from the building above. Laser sighted pistols with zoom-in lens, aimed at four figures, attempting to kill the Altha, Thane, and Quoyle.</p><p>The Hitomi, one down in a spread of pale innards, its creamy rose colored bell collapsed on sprawling, feathered tentacles in the plaza, was survived by its two colleagues, having lowered down to close in around the Altha, an ensconcing nest of venomous protection.</p><p>A Drell on the spired tower disc staggered and slipped, falling away as he clutched his chest where a shot had been returned by a proinnseas Drell kneeling alone forward the others on the plaza, bravely out of range of the unexpected biotic barrier.</p><p>A movement of bodies filed from the crowds, rushing to the assassins’ location. The three remaining Drell responded with retreat, gathering their gear and making for the next tower disc a leap away. Another was shot from behind and collapsed, sliding off the side of a higher disc, unable to call out for the bullet lodged in his neck.</p><p>“Thane? Can I stop now? I’m getting tired.”</p><p>“Lana, please hold out. . . Just a little longer.”</p><p>“Thane?”</p><p>“Yes, Lana?”</p><p>“This place is nice. . . I really like it here.”</p><p>“Lana, you can stay here if you want.”</p><p>“I don’t think so.”</p>
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<a name="section0134"><h2>134. Chapter 134</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quoyle raced ahead of the crowds, eyes wide and arms pumping with the rapid smack of his boots. He was joined by a file of cohen, all in various states of dress from the festival. They made straight for the bottom of the spire, seeing the dark body fall. Quoyle didn’t see it land, it having disappeared behind some furnished gardening and architecture. Racing passed the wallwhere he had seen the body’s last appearance, he pointed and called out to those behind him to grab the mess he saw as he came through. Two stopped to attend to it, one looking up.</p><p>“There!”</p><p>Quoyle skidded and stopped, his face among others looking to the tops of the buildings where they could see a Drell fighting to keep hold of a ledge, a rifle hanging off his back. Unhesitating, Quoyle snapped a word in Rakhic, sharp and loud, and a cohen with yellow, orange and black bandings put something in his hand. Quoyle extended both arms, at the grip of his palms and fingers a pistol, and sighting up through its hairs, muttered something in Rakhic as the rest glanced between their superior and the figure making its way over the tower ledge. He fired.</p><p>The back foot blew off, a scream hailing down. Quoyle gestured to the top of the tower and a handful of cohen disappeared around the corner, undoubtedly making their way to the height in hope of catching the injured.</p><p> </p><p>Lana lay out on the plaza, her eyes closed as Thane picked her up and carried her. He didn’t look anywhere else besides her face, walking ever on towards the key. She still felt warm, but the barrier had faded and the proinnseas Drell were drawing away their firearms. One, then two, then three turned to intercept him, muttering incomprehensibly at each other and ignoring Thane, but they would not let him pass. He glanced up at them, listening, but unsure of their language. It was as if he had spent too long away from his culture, but one could not fault him. He was not born of the special programs created by the Hanar for breeding Drell. One tried to take Lana from him.</p><p>“No. I go with her.”</p><p>(This one needs medical attention, Sere Krios.)</p><p>A Hitomi drifted over, the other sheltering the Altha among its tentacles of lethal venom.</p><p>(Give this one to the proinnseas. Then follow these ones.)</p><p>“I will hold her,” he said, bowing his head respectfully.</p><p> </p><p>Lights passed by like stars at glimmering light speed. Flashes glowed in Lana’s eyes and she couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. She woke up once to see Thane hovering above her face, his own expressionless, devoid of worry, or just hiding it well. She heard David’s laughter at one point, and the murmur of Feron’s voice high and falling low. A Krogan’s rumbled, Garrus’s flange as he muttered something worriedly. At another point, she opened her eyes to see Quoyle, who was looking down at her rightside up while Thane was horizontally still hovering next to her. She could see them look to one and other, both faces expressionless, and then Quoyle turned and went away. The rest was darkness. Healing darkness. She heard her father for a time, angry overtones, Thane’s voice, soft and low.</p><p>She revisited the garden of bush sculptures in her dream, this time dressed in white, and there were people around her, but she couldn’t see them. The water was flowing in the fountain, and she sat down and looked at it for a while.</p><p> </p><p>“Lana. . . Lana? . . .”</p><p>Thane sat beside her on the grooved bed of smooth, black coral, holding her hand and rubbing her middle and index with his thumb and conjoined fingers. He watched her eyelids flutter, twitching, dreams underneath, and he wondered what she was seeing. He looked to the right, drawn to the arrival of David toddling ahead of Feron, whose hands were in his pockets, and Tali and Kenn were behind them. Graine followed, holding Kenn’s hand and the Hanar doll, and more emerged from the dark shadow of a corridor arch letting into the basalt healing chamber, windows to a light-filled underwater world recessed into the wall left, behind Thane. He stood up from Lana and her blankets and pillows, a white bandage wrapped around her head as she lay there and dreamt. Kolyat came in, Wrex, Joker, Garrus, and Miranda last.</p><p>Kolyat went to his father and put his hand on his arm, passing a squeeze of comfort.</p><p>“Has she woken yet?”</p><p>Thane exhaled soft through his nose and looked at Lana, who would not wake.</p><p>“I fear she’s being stubborn. She seems to sit in a dream park and wait by a fountain. At least, that’s what the vicers showed us when last we checked fifteen minutes ago. She could have left there and gone some place else in her memory.”</p><p>“They said she would wake up today,” Garrus said, turning his mandibles to Miranda who glanced at him, her head tilted, and then to Thane.</p><p>Feron picked up David and sat him on Lana’s mat. The others watched as David patted at her arm, exposed along the bed above the sheets.</p><p>“Should be soon, Thane,” Miranda said, her face expressionless, but voice assuring and gentle.</p><p>Graine crawled up onto the bed, having left Kenn to go to the other side, her crests slightly flaring as she had grown a little. The black eyes peered up at Lana’s profile on the pillow, David turning to look up at Feron. Hopping up to perch on the bed, long legs dangling over the side, Graine played with the Hanar doll in front of her, then looked over her shoulder at Lana. She looked at the doll, looked at Lana, and playfully bopped Lana’s face with the doll’s body.</p><p>Thane’s eyes narrowed and reached to shoo Graine off, but as he did, Lana’s nose twitched and she turned her head to the right, breathing in and exhaling.</p><p>“Hit her again, Graine,” Garrus said, Tali elbowing him as Kolyat gave him a look. “What?”</p><p>Thane leaned over to the left of Lana’s bed and dropped his face closer, peering at her. Her lashes pressed as he pushed a strand of hair over her bandage and rest his palm on her cheek.</p><p>Green eyes slanted open, pupils shrinking shy of the light and then widening.</p><p>Thane huffed, smiling, his teeth showing.</p><p>Lana turned her face, looking at him, slow and groggy, then beyond him to the other aliens.</p><p>Her eyes widened, her chest lifting with a deep, sudden breath.</p><p>“Where’s David?” she asked, voice near panic.</p><p>“Right here, Lana,” Feron said and pressed forward with David back in his arms. Lana pushed herself up on her elbows, felt the weight of Graine at her right and looked at the innocent big eyes staring back at her. To Lana, the Vorcha had grown and was looking like a taller juvenile, a little skinnier, the face a little wider.</p><p>“Hey, you,” she smiled.</p><p>David’s weight was added to her arms, and Lana cuddled the child, laying back with him on her chest. She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them, and looked to Thane.</p><p>“How long was I out for?”</p><p>“Three days,” he replied, sitting with her on the bed. “They operated on you as soon as we got you here. You had a hole in your skull, but the damage was minimal and the proinnseas was able to remove any bacteria. The sutures will heal and fall out, and you’re well to know the hair will grow back.”</p><p>She grinned, the tips of her teeth showing as David sucked his thumb and Graine leaned over to stare at him doing so.</p><p>“You know how important a lady’s hair is to her.”</p><p>In reply, Thane ran his left hand through the tresses on the right of her head. He had a relieved smile, Lana thought, and also one that had been drained. There were lines at the edges of his eyes under the black orbs, and a hurt hidden back there behind the lenses. Lana kissed David’s temple, then leaned forward and kissed Thane on his lips, settling back to look at the others behind him.</p><p>“Do you all need consoling kisses, too?”</p><p>The rousing, warm chuckle drew them closer together as they gathered around her bed and began talking, a family already, willing to share their days’ stories that she had missed while convalescing, and Miranda updating her on the medical journal.</p><p> </p><p>When it was time for her to go back to sleep, Thane departed with the rest, taking care of David in his arms as Lana’s fingers trailed over David’s own right. Lana hugged Tali, nodded to Miranda, and made a fist pump with Joker who hobbled off, holding onto Graine’s hand, the Hanar doll still in the other.</p><p>Lana lay back down against the soft pillow, something so smooth and deep she couldn’t find a way to feel uncomfortable on it. She turned her head left, and saw another dark archway across the chamber.</p><p>A feature appeared, and then another. A face, and a big body.</p><p>“Who’s that?” she asked.</p><p>Quoyle emerged, his colors evading the darkness and he leaned against the stone frame curling with the porous wall. He watched her, arms across his chest, holding his elbows. He was dressed back in the short jacket, the bulk of a firearm clear to see. His chest rose and fell slowly as he stood there, a lonely figure shy of the room.</p><p>She pat the left of her bed, welcoming him over. He shook his head against the stone.</p><p>“I’m supposed to keep a watch out. Make sure no one bothers you besides your crew,” he explained. He tilted his head to the other side, regarding her.</p><p>“Guess you got the short straw, huh.”</p><p>“What does that mean?” he asked.</p><p>“It means you got screwed. You know, the worst chore to have to pick from.”</p><p>He glanced down at the floor and back at her, a deep, gentle chuckle.</p><p>“Hardly,” he puffed, voice a thick rill. “I could think of worse. . . And I like watching you with your crewmates, I’ve realized, now that you’re awake.”</p><p>Lana squinted her eyes at him, lips creasing in a small smile, then tiredly closed her eyes. It did not take long for her to fall back asleep.</p><p> </p><p>It was warm in the convalescence chamber, but Lana twisted, shrugging up her shoulders for heat as she turned in her slumber.</p><p>Quoyle left the arch to walk over and pull the cloth sheets up over her shoulders and under her chin. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the bed, nervously, and returned to the arch to look out into the darkness of Vassla’s tunnels.</p>
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<a name="section0135"><h2>135. Chapter 135</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The room was dark, with light coming through the pseudo aquarium windows either side of Lana’s bed of rock and soft padding. She lay with her head turned, tilted down to her left, hair apart on her face, the white strip of clean wrapping gauze around her head, holding hair up as a headband. Her hands lay along each side of her, arms straight and relaxed. The arches on either side of the room remained dark and empty. Lana sniffled, her shoulders shirking, and relaxed as she rolled her head on the pillow to face right. The light through the aquarium windows behind her darkened and brightened. An eerie glow grew to one, that on her left, filling with bioluminescence. Hanar, small, childlike, flitted into the first window, drawing their tendrils together and floating vertically in the water outside. More moved to her right window and pointed the fronts of their bell-shaped crests at the woman in the bed. They lingered for a time, glowing at her, casting more light into the room, before a shadow in the left archway formed into Quoyle, who reached in and waved them off with a few flicks of his fingers. The white bells of Hanar children turned towards his presence, and soon left, swimming with tendrils flagellating delicately at their ends right through the view of the Sybilla bottom until none were left.</p><p> </p><p>“I am. . . Impressed. . . That you survived a bullet to the head.” Kolyat nodded his teal and black face, raising a fork loaded with some blue stringy translucent feed into his mouth and chewing, tucking it into his cheek as he sat next to Lana, one leg up along the bed beside her. She was dressed in a white tank and had pants on under the sheets, sitting up with a stone carved bowl in her hand, cupped to feed herself the same stringy concoction with a pair of thin tools similar to chopsticks. Kolyat had come by to share a visit with her between the others, and to bring her some food from his culture.</p><p>“Is this seaweed?”</p><p>“It’s a type of fish.”</p><p>“What’s it called?”</p><p>“You can’t pronounce its real name in your tongue, but the best way to describe it. . . It’s see-through, long, has no bones really, more like a. . . Cartilaginous structure than anything,” he said, waving the chops, “and it’s actually threshed up with the rest of the meat.”</p><p>“And you eat it raw?” Her eyes flicked up and down, stuffing another wad of semi blue string into her mouth.</p><p>“Yeah. . . Don’t tell Quoyle. He’ll get offended since he’s a cohen and they’re not supposed to eat anything that was once living, I guess.”</p><p>“They eat rocks?”</p><p>He grinned, glancing at the doorway with the shadow of pupils behind his lenses, crunching a few more times as he prepared an answer. “Plants and things like snails, I guess.”</p><p>“Snails are alive, or moving,” Lana said.</p><p>“Plants move, too, but it’s different. It’s not like you’re eating a cousin of the Hanar,” he replied.</p><p>She nodded, focused on her food. She had been eating what was provided by the Hanar and what the others could sneak to her from the city and Cerberus ship, the Interceptor, when they could. It had been four days and four nights, this being the start of the fifth day of her convalescence. Thane had come by nearly every hour he could, though he was spending time with Kolyat and David and talking with Garrus about what was going on. Today, Kolyat had informed Lana that his father had an audience with the Altha in regards to her, and that was why she was seeing more of the others bringing the children around, Graine and David, instead of Thane.</p><p>“So what’s the deal with the cohen? There’s overton, like Kalia,” she dropped her voice with resentment, “and cohen like Thekla and Quoyle. What do they do, and how are they different?”</p><p>Kolyat spoke with his mouth full, hastily tucking it aside with his tongue as he tried to communicate. “The cohen are breeders. They are selected by the Altha Hanar to feed the proinnseas. It’s their genetics they cross with the experimental groups, the cohens being the control.”</p><p>Lana set her rods into the bowl and stared at Kolyat. “Breeders? Control? Experimental groups? What was that word?”</p><p>“What, proinnseas?”</p><p>“Pro-en-say-uz.”</p><p>“Yeah, they’re programs. Experiments. The Hanar like to play with genetic manipulation by crossing sperm, ovum, DNA. . . You know. . . Genetic modification. With different species.”</p><p>“That’s legal here?”</p><p>“Well, on Kahje, it’s the Hanar’s homeworld, and we’re just,” he shrugged, “recent guests in the past fifty thousand years.”</p><p>“The Drell aren’t from Kahje,” she reminded herself, looking at him. He shook his head a little, staring at the food. “So. . . Do the Hanar want to uplift the Drell like the Salarians did the Krogan?”</p><p>“Don’t ask me,” Kolyat said through another quickly tucked mouthful. He fast consumed the remains in his bowl, set this down, and looked up, the back of his head to her. “I was born on the outside. My mother died before I could ask her anything, and genetics might have been more interesting to share with her colleagues than with a kid.” He blinked, then shifted around to twist himself and look at her. Lana’s green eyes glanced down. She reached up and rubbed at the front of her bandage to relieve an itch on her forehead. Her green eyes jumped back up to him.</p><p> </p><p>Human hands slipped up over wildly patterned blue and black skin, shifting energetically forwards and backwards as the couple combined to have sex. The woman arched her pale neck, moving her chin out of the way so the male Drell could close his mouth around the lower edge of her jaw. He held her tight, moving his lower half eagerly.</p><p>Quoyle looked away, fingers reaching to his lip and kneading at the thick line dividing his lower one like it did the upper, running from the underside of his nose down his lips through his chin before dividing to border his tebris.</p><p>(Is this one reconsidering?)</p><p>The pale periwinkle Hanar hovering a few feet from him undulated glowing pink ripples over her body.</p><p>“No,” Quoyle said, still looking away from the observation room inside one of the proinnseas chambers for interspecies experimentation. “I’m not ready for this.”</p><p>(The child would not have to be raised by this one. A home—)</p><p>“I know,” Quoyle said, looking down and slowly turning back, almost reluctant, too curious to avoid it entirely. “I just need some more time to think if I wish to accept the Abban’s suggestion.”</p><p>The Hanar floated lower. (This one is pure. Come back when it is time. There will be no further conditions with this one’s status as a cohen for the Altha.)</p><p>“Thank you.” He gazed at the Hanar, then faced the couple having intercourse in the other room. He turned and left her.</p><p> </p><p>Lana was walking around in her convalescence chamber, holding David in her arms, his face directed at hers. She had a smile on, bouncing him gently now and then, and carried him over to the window on the right of the bed to point at several small Hanar children floating up and fanning their white and pink tendrils towards the glass in their own interest of them. Her mouth made words, at least he heard a whisper, happy and engaging with the boy, as she looked out with David, smiling and staring at the friendly little Hanar trying to interact with them through the glass. Thane smiled, leaning against the arch frame and folding his arms, resting his fingers against the smooth fabric of a dark coat covering his biceps. Lana slowly turned with David, and looking from her son, reaching to touch the tendrils silking over the glass, looked over and saw Thane. She smiled.</p><p>“Thanks for bringing him in,” she said, disappointing the child and the Hanar as she walked over and gazed about, checking for time though there was none. She pressed against Thane’s arm, which opened to support David. His fingers touched her elbow as she passed her son into the hold of his dark sleeves. Lana’s eyes were fixed on Thane’s as he looked up from David’s round forehead and blond hair to her face.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>She leaned across David and kissed Thane on the mouth after he said this, her eyelashes closing in synch with the touch, pausing, before pulling away. Thane’s eyes had closed and now opened with her lips’ departure. She wet her lips and put her hand on the left tebris and patak edge of his face, tickling him with her fingers grazing the silk, stiff, red folds. She gave him a gentle squeeze, Thane nodding ever so subtly and stepping away as he swallowed desire down his throat.</p><p>“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said huskily. “Goodnight, siha.”</p><p>He turned and carried David out as Lana returned to her bed, feeling the soft fabric along her waist and sliding her hands down the sides of her pants.</p><p>She stopped at the edge of her bed, placing her fingerpads on the sheets, then gazed about the chamber, settling her eyes on the water view through the window far right of her bed. She had looked out before, seen the Hanar children, the world of obscuring blue, white sand tinged with the color of the water, coral fingers reaching upwards, and darker objects like rocky masses in the sfumata distance. It had always been a dark blue shadow there, to the side of the glass, a world beyond her window, beyond her imagination. She smiled, thinking how unique it was to be able to sleep beneath the waters of an ocean. And then she wondered, as she looked through the glass, beyond to that distant shadow, if it was like looking at the extension of a building, a connection to another part of the network of tunnels beneath Mount Vassla. She peeked behind her to the arch where Thane and David had departed, then to the second arch right over her opposite shoulder. And like any woman with a curiousness in her heart, Lana gazed back out the window, at that extension in the distance, and decided that she would take a walk. <em>Just a quick one, before I go to sleep.</em></p><p>Her feet were bare as they pressed across the smooth basalt floor, melted to something like marble. It was cool, and yet she felt warm, wearing simple pajamas, the rift of her belly’s skin uncovered between the bottom of her white tank and upper white waist band. She let her hand explore the wall, rougher, less polished, and let the curve of the organic mineral guide her to the arch of the door. She had been seeing less of Quoyle lately, so it did not surprise her when no one was at the archway. Things had been calm since the assassination attempt on the Altha. One assassin had been caught almost, but committed suicide on a cohen’s knife, and two others were found, dropped by proinnseas long sidearms. And being in the warm, dark tunnel somewhere beneath Mount Vassla, Lana felt at ease, compared to her trips through Omega’s sewer system with Adjutants and rising, flowing sewage.</p><p> </p><p>As she came around the bend of the arch, hand up along the wall, she tilted her head and leaned out, looking left down the tunnel. A light glowed, fading as though wandering off. Lana’s brow flexed as she glanced back at her chamber and then followed the wall, silently padding down the tunnel. It curved and ribbed as though a great worm had wormed itself through long ago, leaving marks in the side as rough and yet as smooth as volcanic rock could be without being polished. The pores began to chafe and catch at her fingertips, and she took her hand away from the wall, following the shallow winds and bends. Blue and green algae on the ceiling above began to apply a resin of light over her as she started to fear the tunnel was too dark and hesitated, about to turn back.</p><p>The surreal, dreamy glow both surprised and delighted her, like a child coming across something special. It seemed to lead her on, beckoning, encouraging her to follow. Lana walked the middle of the corridor, looking up, amazed by the glow on the ceiling casting down on her in cool eerie light. As she stepped further, more of the ceiling lit off, as though each foot contact created a silent sound that energized whatever was coating the ceiling. It looked like mold, but mold it was not, and did not give the creepy feeling of decay or squalor. It was clean, refreshing, invitational.</p><p>She saw no doorways. No windows. Only felt herself drawn onwards to see where the tunnel led, the glowing algae lighting the way. She did not know how long ago she had left the chamber, nor did she realize how far she was going, and with some trepidation, came to a stop and stared passed the limits of the bioluminescent light shading deeper down the tunnel path.</p><p> </p><p>Quoyle strode back to the convalescence chamber, hurrying some since he felt he was late. He didn’t want to hang around her too much. Lately, he was feeling nervous because he thought constantly being present was drawing too much familiarity, and he wanted to give Lana time to herself with Thane, her son, and her crew.</p><p>He stopped and stared into the chamber, seeing the empty bed, the windows. No presence in the room. His eyes widened and he stepped in for a better look. Seeing her not there, he strode to the other arch and looked out, then contacted Thane on his omnitool. There was no response.</p><p>
  <em>He might be sleeping.</em>
</p><p>Quoyle stepped out into the tunnel, scented the air, but it did not carry the scent of the room nor of Lana. He furrowed his gaze, turned, took a step, halted, went back into the room and stared at the bed.</p><p>He placed his hand on it, above the white sheets, and looked up through the right window.</p><p>A white glow in the blue distance that wasn’t there before.</p><p>Quoyle went out the opposite tunnel he had entered by and turned left, dark eyes studying the ceiling for excited microorganisms. He detected the telltale burnoff of these as he went around the corner, following the ceiling of the tube.</p><p>“Shephard?” he called.</p><p>The walls absorbed the sound of his voice. Keeping his gaze up, he followed the burnoff of stimulated cells interacting with the sound of him and the condition of his presence. The algae was carnivorous, parasitic, and responded to the presence of organic tissue nearby, waiting like sea anemones reacted with their invisible threads, but instead of these, the algae used light, beckoning towards the life that moved through it. For sustenance to pass further into their reach.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0136"><h2>136. Chapter 136</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A deep voice spoke, low, idly threatening, suspicious.</p><p>“What are you doing here?”</p><p>Lana turned suddenly from staring down the tunnel darkness ahead, blue green algae glowing almost all around her and lighting the tunnel up with her in its pale glow. Her eyes were wide, the color scarce in her irises, but her pupils were spacious. She didn’t say anything as she stood her ground and lowered her hand, looking slightly upward at the dark Drell standing behind her. His face was dark, a strip of yellow, blue patak, other colors along the contours of his neck and tebris, red, some white. She couldn’t see through the lenses, though the lowered eye ridges were hint enough he was distrustful and not so friendly.</p><p>The eye ridges eased upwards as his face lifted to behind her, then slowly tilted back down.</p><p>He waited.</p><p>“I was going for a walk,” she said, putting her hands down by her sides, looking less defensive. She considered how tall he was and lean in relation to other Drell. He wore very little besides a thin black uniform over his body, as though he was meant to be a sliver of darkness, but in light, his colors among his black skin might be striking. Like other Drell, he had thin skin and he had muscle. He spoke, and his voice sounded threatening, as though he could strike, but he only cautioned her.</p><p>“You should be careful in the tunnels.” He nodded behind her with a slight movement of his head. “Mount Vassla protects itself, though her veins no longer fill with magma.” The pupilless eyes studied her. “Are you with the proinnseas?”</p><p>“I. . . No. I’m with. . . Quoyle.” Her eyes danced right as if to say she had come from back there, beyond him.</p><p>Something lit in the other’s eyes, recognition, and he nodded in acknowledgement, slow. “I see. . . Perhaps we should return you to him?”</p><p>Instead of turning and leading her back the way she’d came, he raised his left hand to the tunnel ahead of them, the way she had been following.</p><p>“He should be up ahead.”</p><p>Lana parted her lips as if to speak, but swiveled her jaw to the right, gazed down the tunnel, then back to the Drell. “My name’s Lana, by the way.”</p><p>He considered her in silence, then replied with a rough pronunciation of his name. “Kane.”</p><p>He spoke as if every word were a held, importantly considered breath. Lana nodded her head briskly and turned right, starting forward again and walking ahead of him. She glanced backwards over her shoulder at the Drell, who started a walk behind her, keeping back a distance. She looked forward, a little whisper in her head telling her to be guarded. Something seemed. . . Unwholesome about this Drell, escorting her further down the tunnel, guiding her supposedly towards the cohen in charge of her presence under Mount Vassla and that of her crew’s, Cerberus, farther away from the quiet sanctity of her convalescence chamber.</p><p>Kane walked behind her, his hands closing together behind his back, herding her without a hand or a sound, only sheer presence, deeper into the glowing tunnel.</p><p> </p><p>Quoyle looked left and right, checking the shallow curves and grooves in the walls as he padded quickly onward in his boots. The algae was alive and brightened over him, casting his colors into their dull mute. His hands opened and folded as they swung low by his hips.</p><p>“Where does a Human go when she’s under a vast mountain, recovering from a hole in her head, and has no idea where she is,” he muttered under his breath. The algae light faded behind him as he went deeper along the path the burnoff had taken him.</p><p> </p><p>The tunnel ahead was wider, opened, circular, and almost perfect, minus some rough imperfections. It breathed at her, passing a sweet floral essence that Lana found relaxing, even alluring.</p><p>“What’s that smell up ahead. . . It reminds me of. . . Not quite flowers, not quite bread loaves baking in the oven. . . Food?”</p><p>Kane had stopped behind her, hands at his sides, still two paces away. He looked to the tunnel, and then to her, and quietly backed off.</p><p>“I will leave you,” he spoke in his deep, soft resonance. “Go ahead without me. You will find Quoyle soon.”</p><p>Lana stood at the mouth of the wider rim of darkness, the algae growing bright around her, making her white body appear a divide in the center of the tunnel. Kane turned and walked away, making no noise as the bioluminescence lit up again with his passing back the way they’d came.</p><p>“Quoyle?”</p><p>Lana’s call into the darkness received no echo, but a far off light seemed to unshell itself, blackness revealing it, fading left, and her voice of his name, delayed, suddenly began to repeat back to her from that distance. It repeated again, this time bouncing off countless walls like a ping pong ball, or ripples.</p><p>Sound waves. Sonic radar.</p><p>Lana’s skin prickled as the echo of her voice repeating Quoyle’s name grew more excited and maddening. She stepped backwards and turned, looking for Kane, but he was long gone.</p><p>The noise stopped, and there was only Lana breathing through her nose.</p><p>She slowly turned back to the mouth of the perfect rim. The light was closer, still, but eerily had moved of its own doing.</p><p>Lana exhaled fast and forced through her nostrils. There was a gleam behind the ghostly light. Two gleams.</p><p>“Lana.”</p><p>Quoyle’s voice had caught up with her, and so had the cohen. He grabbed her shoulder and walked her backwards, fingers digging through the fabric of her shirt into her shoulder.</p><p>“Del’kenish. Keep walking. Don’t go to the light source. Keep calm with me and keep walking.”</p><p>“What is it?” she whispered, eyes glued to the waiting light at the mouth of darkness.</p><p>“They are scavengers from the archives. They protect what is not meant to be seen. We also use them to dispose of certain dead.”</p><p>He walked her backwards, eyes lowered down to the white of her tank between her shoulder blades, refusing to look at the ball of light suspended ahead of them in the tunnel. The floral essence, the smell of Lana’s so-called ‘bread’, was strong and seductive, making her want to go forward and find out what it was, but Quoyle’s strong grip on her shoulder assured that he would not let her take another step unless it went backwards. He turned his head to the left, still walking, closing his nose to the aroma, or at least his taste. The light of the ball strengthened most at the end of the tunnel, and the algae glowed and lit as they walked away, deepening into darkness compared to where he had found her standing.</p><p>Quoyle turned Lana round, guiding her with one hand switching to her opposite shoulder, the other at her waist, moving her urgently along until they had walked at least twenty feet and he could feel the threat watching them, but not inclined to come further.</p><p>“They are attracted to sound and use their own to locate the source, but they cannot see well,” he said, his voice behind her, calm, patient, “but they will wait for someone to come to their light and touch it, touching them, which will get you eaten in the snap of a second. They are very fast.”</p><p>Lana blinked, coming out of her rush and entrancement. She became aware of the heat on her waist and furrowed her brow, reaching up to touch his hand on her shoulder.</p><p>“I’m okay, Quoyle.”</p><p>His hands fled and he walked beside her then, not quite filling the spacious tunnel. His hands retreated into his pockets and he looked ahead, both walking the way they had come.</p><p>“You can’t go traveling around down here. Vassla is built the way it is for a reason.”</p><p>“I thought it was a volcano originally.”</p><p>“It was, but the Protheans put it to uses and much of what now exists down here is leftover from their finaglings.” His eyes slid down to look at her without moving his face, the tunnel ribs passing alongside them. “You should have stayed in the chamber.”</p><p>She nodded, then remembered Kane.</p><p>“There was a Drell down here,” she suddenly said, glancing at him. “He said his name was Kane and warned me about the tunnels, but he said you were down the way of that. . . Thing.”</p><p>His face turned sharply to her downturned head and he stopped, touching her arm.</p><p>“You saw another Drell who told you I was down with the kenish?”</p><p>She looked at him and nodded. Turning her shoulders, she faced him. “He said to keep walking and I would find you waiting down there.”</p><p>“Were you looking for me?” His eye ridges bent at perplexed angles.</p><p>“No, I was going for a walk, but when he found me, he looked suspicious, so I told him I was with you because, well, technically you <em>are</em> in charge of us. Cerberus, that is.”</p><p>His lips parted and closed. He looked down. “Right. That’s right. I am.”</p><p>She could see his tebris swallow and he gestured her with a cup of his hand to continue walking.</p><p>They passed a deep rib of wall that cut out into the tunnel. A few paces more and Lana spoke.</p><p>“What do the del’kenish guard, if I may ask.”</p><p>Quoyle tilted his head right, his jaw loose with his lips.</p><p>“Secrets,” he said. “Secrets only the Hanar know of. I’m just a cohen.”</p><p>She twisted her lips up in a small smile. “Yeah, I know. Some type of super soldier.”</p><p>He smiled, and it looked embarrassed, and if she had seen him out in broad daylight, his tebris would have darkened. Quoyle took a sly look at her then.</p><p>“You’re teasing.”</p><p>“Kolyat said the cohen were selected by the Altha for their genetics, to be crossed and bred for experimentation, but that you were the control against which to compare. Not saying that you’re perfect or anything,” she made a funny face, eyes widening, “but, umm, you’re obviously selected for a reason that, at least to me, sounds like the Hanar value some genetic traits you and others like you possess for their preferences.”</p><p>He licked his lips and his smile seemed to work off his face. He looked ahead and down.</p><p>“They choose us because we are loyal. They breed us for adaptability and temperament.”</p><p>“Like animals being domesticated.”</p><p>He didn’t say anything, not even giving a nod nor shake as they walked.</p><p>She looked at him on her right, folding her hands together in front of her waist.</p><p>“I’m sorry. That wasn’t—“</p><p>“It’s true,” he said, stopping. “We are here only because they see potential in Drell, and with the Compact, we are required to submit to their needs where they feel they have them. They take care of us, but they also breed us. The Hanar need an army to travel above ground. It makes sense to me.”</p><p>“That’s not right, even if it does tactically. I was part of a. . . Foundations.” <em>Oh my God, it sounds the same.</em> She stared at him, Quoyle looking back at her.</p><p>“What is it?” he asked, lids dipping in concern.</p><p>Lana turned and walked on suddenly, her eyebrows bent in consternation. Quoyle raised his eye ridges and walked after her. When he caught up, he switched the subject.</p><p>“So the name of that Drell you said you saw down here and spoke to you. . . He said his name was Kane.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>He glanced alongside her. “What did he look like?”</p><p>“It was hard to tell exactly with the light, but he was thin and tall, very dark, and there was patterning that reminded me of blue and yellow on his head and face, some red and white around his neck, that,” she looked over and pointed her finger at his tebris and made a loop with her index, incidentally brushing the smooth bumps of his interconnected chutes framing the delicate skin. He stared at her, quelling the sensation the touch had caused and didn’t realize he had stopped walking.</p><p>“Like that on your neck,” she finished, closing her finger in her hand.</p><p>“Ah.” His tebris pulsed and he looked ahead of them down the tunnel, not quite to the chamber yet. He gazed back at her, and looked as if he wanted to ask her something.</p><p>She waited, stopped and standing next to him, her face expectant.</p><p>Quoyle smiled nervously, glanced down, then back ahead the tunnel.</p><p>The rib of the wall moved away silently, skin the color of green blue algae and pumice moving to stand behind them. A slim, silver blade, gleaming its separate facets, was held in the hand behind the moving wall, camouflaged with the tunnel and luminous glow beyond it.</p><p>“I have been. . . Offered by our Abban to. . .” He licked his lips, looking ridiculously nervous for a large, intimidating Drell. He shifted his boots and tugged his cuffs. “I have been considering. . . What you and Thane have. . . And. . .” He huffed, smile showing teeth as he stared at the ground, tebris inflating and flattening in an exotic motion of muscle Lana had never seen one do before. It was amazing to watch the tebris move separately. Quoyle released a high pitched, short trill and stared down to the right ahead of them. He was so embarrassed.</p><p>“What do you want to ask me? About Thane and I? Our relationship?” She moved closer, kindly encouraging him with a smile.</p><p>“I. . .” He closed his eyes. “I want to ask. . . If it hurt. . . To be with someone else. . . Besides. . . Your. . . Species. . .”</p><p>Lana’s eyes widened. She made a little surprised face and looked down, her hand hovering in the air next to his arm. She curled her fingers and blinked, skeptical if she could answer that, for if he was involved with someone else, another Human, it was always different. . .</p><p>“I would say. . . I enjoy it very much with Thane,” she said smiling and blushing as she looked at him aside.</p><p>Quoyle shook his head, turning away, opening and closing his eyes at how humiliating he felt and how good it was to have someone to talk to who understood. Lana squinted her eyes at him.</p><p>“Do you have someone. . . Another Human in mind?”</p><p>“She is. . . Unaware. . . Of how I feel. . . And this is,” he sighed, looking up and rubbing his nape, working his muscles in a circle with his neck as his dark gaze rolled clockwise to her face. His right hand was jammed in his pocket, the wall behind him moving, shimmering, reflecting the dark mouth of the tunnel, the glowing algae, the basalt pumice, the slip of blade moving out and up to Quoyle’s right.</p><p>“Is she. . . Here? Part of the pro-in-says. . .”</p><p>“Proinnseas,” he corrected for her, his teeth in a goofy smile.</p><p>She folded her arms, holding her chin with a crooked finger, her teeth showing. “Really. . . She doesn’t happen to be a certain Cerberus brunette with big blue eyes, does she?”</p><p>Quoyle chuckled, sliding his left hand down his neck and reaching to put it into his pocket. He began to walk forward, and as he took two steps, the blade disappeared behind his back and his eyes went up as he realized what he wanted to say and turned to face Lana who was watching him, smiling with a crooked pair of eyebrows, her hands behind her back as she stepped in synch with him.</p><p>“I want to say, seeing you with Thane, has made me realize that it’s okay, and I don’t have to be afraid to tell her how I feel.”</p><p>Lana looked ahead at the ground as Quoyle took another step with her and winced suddenly, his hands flexing up as his elbows bent and he painfully grimaced, reaching over his head.</p><p>“Kala, no. . .” he said, falling to one knee, the sliver of blade lancing up, dark and stained and Lana reaching to catch his arm.</p><p>“Quoyle? Quoyle, what’s wrong?”</p><p>“Something. . .” he sighed and fell forward on his chest, Lana struggling to hold his arm up.</p><p>“Quoyle. Quoyle.”</p><p>Lana knelt next to him, rolling him over to see his face.</p><p>“What happened? You were fine—what’s happening?”</p><p>He breathed in, painfully, and rasped as he raised his hand from behind his head and pressed it to her face. Blood began to trickle from his mouth as his eyes set on her, his fingers pressing to her bandage, palm against her skin, and he moved his lips, but only more dark blood came out.</p><p>Lana raised her hands, breathing rushed, near panic. She straightened and bent, not seeing anyone in the tunnel and pressed her hands to Quoyle’s chest.</p><p>“Quoyle, tell me what’s happening!” she yelled.</p><p>His mouth opened and closed, and he suddenly pushed her face, forcing her to turn and look at the shape that was not a shape but a tall figure camouflaged by reflective prisms over its form.</p><p>Her hands still on Quoyle as his fingers fell away, leaving Drell blood imprinted by his palm and fingerprints on the bandage and skin, Lana’s jaw dropped as she stared at the shimmering wall standing there over her, a dark blade dipped in blood hanging by its side, half covered by a reflective hand.</p><p> </p><p>Thane materialized out of the archway, his gaze dangerous, face set, arm already extended and ending in a pistol at his grip. His eyes reflected the tunnel ahead, Quoyle on the floor, Lana kneeling backwards, away from the invisible killer. But Thane could see him. He could feel him. He could smell the kin of Clyde Trumhall’s blood for he had bathed in it, tasted it, and painted the liar’s cottus in it. The nozzle of the pistol trembled and flashed, harsh barks of noise deafening those in the tunnel, except Thane, who had his teness guarded.</p><p>The camouflaged figure shook, prisms fading, dark uniform and goggles appearing as the right arm raised, the blade flying backwards with the explosion of a wrist from Thane’s firing arm. The figure stepped back, teetered, then fell.</p><p>Thane strode passed Lana and Quoyle, aimed straight down at the Drell he had just shot multiple times, and flexed his trigger finger, releasing one more round through the forehead. He stepped over the Drell, located the blade that had been dropped and skittered away, and sniffing this, he covered it somewhere inside his coat.</p><p>Turning, he strode back to Lana, cupped her chin and checked her face, seeing the hand print Quoyle had left to turn her to their assailant, nodded, and bent to Quoyle, picking up the Drell by his chest and armpits and dragging him back to the convalescence chamber. He turned right, sliding Quoyle’s limp legs and boots behind him and through the entry.</p><p>Lana huffed, forcing herself to breathe out, and sat to her hip, swinging her gaze to the dead Drell left behind with her. She touched the side of her face, feeling the wet. Pulling her hand away, she stared at the stain on her fingertip, then looked back to the Drell.</p><p>She sat backwards against the wall.</p><p>Thane hauled Quoyle onto the bed and rolled him over to his right side. He pressed his fingers to the cohen’s back, felt upwards until he found the hole in the leather jacket, a spread of blood betraying itself on the flesh of Thane’s fingers.</p><p>Miranda suddenly appeared at the opposite archway, walking forward with a calm, assertive gait, and removing a syringe from her belt, she tapped it hard, pressed the flange and glanced at Thane, who gave her a nod as he held Quoyle still.</p><p>The needle ended point down in Quoyle’s shoulder, Miranda holding the top of the right arm over the leather jacket, and depressed the syringe’s clear contents into the Drell. She removed the syringe, it disappearing in front of Quoyle, and she pressed her thumb into the injection site, preventing whatever went in from coming out. She looked at Thane.</p><p>“He’ll be okay. Thank you.”</p><p>Thane nodded, turned, and strode back to the hall where Lana had been left with the body.</p><p>He found her against the wall, knees folded up, arms around these, looking straight ahead, the body still supine in a pool of blood.</p><p>Thane knelt in front of her, touching her forearm, and waved his fingers for her to come to him. The profile of her silhouette directed her nose upwards, as if finally seeing him, and her mouth moved.</p><p>He nodded, gaze still focused on her.</p><p>She bent her head down, and he remained knelt in front of her, not looking away, ignoring Kane spread on the floor between them, down the tunnel.</p><p>Lana raised her eyes from her forearm.</p><p>“How did you know he would come for Quoyle?”</p><p>Thane turned his head, studying her expression. “The Altha had the Abban detained. We used vicers on one of the surviving assassins before we killed him.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0137"><h2>137. Chapter 137</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quoyle lay on his back now with lights lit from above in the chamber Lana had previously occupied. Miranda was beside him, looking down, between the sea windows that reflected the brighter interior and Thane and Lana both walking towards the opposite arch, Lana in her white convalescence uniform and Thane in dark fabrics, his hand on her lower back, guiding. Lana gazed to the right at Quoyle, his eyes closed, face calm and resting. She stopped, Thane as well, and he gazed after her as she turned to walk towards the Drell.</p><p>Miranda brought her head up.</p><p>“Is he alright?”</p><p>“Yes, Commander. I’m waiting for the Altha and several of Quoyle’s colleagues. The Drell will be removed from the tunnel, and Quoyle will be transported elsewhere.”</p><p>Lana’s eyes dropped from Miranda’s as Quoyle’s face pinched and his eyes slid apart and opened, the four eyelids fluttering as he took a sudden breath and looked from the ceiling downwards. He instantly sought Lana.</p><p>She brightened with a smile and stepped up to the bed side.</p><p>He surprised her by bending his elbow, touching her arm with his small finger. It was a meaningful caress as he gazed up at her, seeking emotion in his eyes.</p><p>“Are you alright?”</p><p>She furrowed her brow, her smile still up. “Yes. How are you feeling? That was a scare back there.”</p><p>His face looked hopeful and the hand went to the blood on her cheek.</p><p>“I’m sorry for that.”</p><p>His finger moved and pressed against the corner of her lips, wiping down. There was no blood there.</p><p>Lana’s eyebrows twitched and her smile began to dissipate as Miranda gazed onward at Quoyle’s display of affection. Thane remained still, passive, hands loose at his sides apart from them.</p><p>Suddenly Lana knew who Quoyle had been meaning to share his feelings with.</p><p>She quickly collected his hand and placed it on his chest firm, adding with it a tense look with her eyes wide, eyebrows lifted, and lips pursed. She pressed his hand downward, almost pumped herself back in her motion to straighten away from him.</p><p>She was horrified, feeling rather speechless, but managed to shake her head.</p><p>“Don’t do that to us.”</p><p>She didn’t mean his touch. She had already crossed the first line when she innocently wiped the blood off his mouth corner in Hallmar’s Key. She meant the look, the way she liked him and her developing friendship with him, and that what he was doing was threatening something very good between the pair.</p><p>And he knew what was in her eyes. Resolution.</p><p>Quoyle turned his face away to the left, suddenly embarrassed. He let his arm rest across his chest on the bed, and remembered the feeling of her skin on the smalls of his fingers.</p><p> </p><p><em>Human lips, loose and light, pressed against smooth-lined green and magenta lips. Thicker, darker fingers coasted across a red patak under a navy ridge to human cheeks stretching with mouthing motions.</em> The imagined imagery faded from Lana’s thoughts as she walked through the darker tunnels, lit by warmer lights and minus blue green algae that led to del’kenish, ahead of them.</p><p>“He was fond of you,” Thane said, eyes down, soft, and forward as he walked with his hands clasped in front of him, giving Lana her space.</p><p>Lana looked right at him, her hair hanging forward over the stained bandage still. “You knew. Is that why you let him take the blade?”</p><p>Thane nodded. His green, salmon colored-feathered lips parted. “It would have been easier this way.” He paused, gauging her silence. “Quoyle would have challenged for you. I would have had to kill him.”</p><p>Lana stared at him, her eyes widening angrily. Thane went on, resuming his pace.</p><p>“The Altha would not allow it, so we decided to let Kane handle Quoyle instead, and I would step in only to intervene when Quoyle was incapacitated. Cerberus was made aware of how you would be involved. Your father was angry about it, but,” his lips actually stretched in a chuckling smile, “he was <em>more than a </em><em>little</em> relieved to have one less Drell to have to figure out how to get rid of over interest in you. . . And though I am no small challenge,” he stopped again, turned his face to gaze upon hers, “killing an important cohen among the Altha’s elite, and one of your father’s own strings, would have been too detrimental to either’s plans and connections.”</p><p>Lana’s anger subsided and her face became less tense as she realized the truth in Thane’s words. She glanced down, staring at the basalt floor, blinked, and returned her gaze to his.</p><p>“I don’t know what to say. . .” She wet her lip, glancing aside before back at him. “To think all of this subterfuge was going on while I was in that bed recovering. . . Did the others even know?”</p><p>Thane shook his head gently. “No. It was between myself, the Altha, Strang, and Miranda.”</p><p>“Couldn’t I have just said ‘no’ to Quoyle to avoid all this?”</p><p>“He wouldn’t have told you.” Thane took a breath, exhaling lightly. “He is. . . Shy.”</p><p>Lana narrowed her eyes at this statement, glanced behind them down the tunnel to the archway of the convalescence chamber, then back at Thane.</p><p>“But he would have challenged you,” she said, “which is starting to carry to <em>me</em> the impression that he would have fought you, which <em>doesn’t</em> strike me as what a shy Drell would do!”</p><p>Thane took her irascity with a grin, a silent chuckle. “You have to know our ways to understand, Lana.”</p><p>He caressed her hair, pushing it behind her left shoulder. She caught his fingers with hers, lowering these down between them, not letting go.</p><p>“When a Drell such as Quoyle finds himself attracted to one outside his species, he is nervous because of his upbringing in the proinnseas. . . The Altha has taught the cohen that they may branch out when they wish, but they must select certain criterion, and so their interests must meet these. . . I think Quoyle was nervous about asking you, because it would involve much violation of privacy.”</p><p>“What, do people examine interspecies compatibility around here, too?”</p><p>He turned and began to walk, pulling Lana along with him. She came easy, staring at Thane and waiting for an answer. He glanced back at her, that small smile still on his face.</p><p>“Would you like to go back and tell him you accept him?”</p><p>She bent her brow at angles. “No. . . <em>Ass</em>.” She smiled, tugging her arm, Thane pulling her to him as he placed his hand on her waist, over her skin and tank hem. Moving his head forward, he kissed her as she moved forward to kiss him.</p><p> </p><p>The tunnels were ribbed and grooved deeply, permitting Kane by which an easy hiding place to have camouflaged and hid himself with the Prothean technology he possessed. It worked well for Thane, who covered Lana’s body with his own, her clothes on the floor, legs hooked on his hands either side of his waist as they made loving work in a cloister of the grooves of the tunnel, away from eyes and prying peep shows. Lana’s hands held her wrists over his dark, muscular neck, head arched back as he kissed her collarbone and throat, raising and lowering her with her knees wet against his palms in the hollow of their private cloister.</p><p> </p><p>The rain seemed grey as it slashed down at them, berating the shields they were using to cover from the pelt. Dark uniforms stood about the half-mile long starship, grey and moduled to have several compartments and covered corridors along the exterior of the ship that bent inwards into the body of the vessel. The word Interceptor was printed across the bottom with dark letters. Various lights on its tips and edges, massive bulbs, flashed colorfully outwards to let everyone on the padak know it was primed and ready for leaving.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“How did you know he would come for Quoyle?” Her eyes shown up at him, wet, glassy.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The Altha had the Abban detained. We used vicers on one of the surviving assassins before we killed him. . . The Abban’s venom is on the blade Kane used on Quoyle, but Miranda was ready with the antidote.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Lana blinked, wind tugging her hair and rain beading her face where the shield did not prevent it from coming in. She looked up left to Thane, who gazed back at her, then to the stair ramp leading into the ship. Warm, yellow lights glowed inside, and she could see David waiting for her, held by Feron in white sleeved arms, Graine standing next to him. <em>She’s certainly growing,</em> Lana thought as she remarked to herself of the finer development among female Vorcha’s head details.</p><p>She made forward with Thane ahead of her.</p><p>And stopped.</p><p>She looked behind them and saw the dark figures in their rain-gear waiting for them to go in the ship. One stood out before the others, not even ten paces away. The wind gust pushed back the flap of his hood and Lana squinted.</p><p>She swore it was a look-alike of Thane.</p><p>Hiatt couldn’t resist. He stepped forward, hand on the strap of his rifle, and bowed his head to her.</p><p>“<em>No way,</em>” Lana smiled, turning bodily to him.</p><p>“It is good to meet the woman my brother is so enamored with.” He offered his hand in Human style. “Hiatt Krios, overton for the Hanar.”</p><p>She reached her hand through the cover of the shielding, through the rain, grasping his hand with a squeeze. It felt warm, wet, and strong, very similar to Thane’s own grip, and she removed her hand to her side, holding the front of her coat closed was the other. Mouth twisting up in a tickled smile showing her teeth, Lana turned, double-glanced at him, then jogged through the water after Thane who was waiting for her, his hand outstretched from the steps of the ship.</p><p>Hiatt looked up at his brother, and the two shared a moment, nodding their family greeting.</p><p>Thane turned and ran up the steps after Lana.</p><p><em>Well, that’s all I’m going to get and that’s not different from before,</em> Hiatt thought to himself as he and his fellow overtons watched the rampway close up.</p><p>They turned as he did, and waded through the watery padak, boots pushing waves away as they moved towards their own shey lift not far off.</p><p> </p><p>Lana’s face was in a port window, trying to see after the Drell who was leaving to the large, compact platform that had transported them so far from the mainland. She felt Thane’s warmth as he stood next to her, placing his hand on the right of her neck, tilting his face to kiss the skin between her jaw and left ear.</p><p>“You had a brother here the entire time,” she vocalized her thoughts, and turned her face into his, glancing down at his mouth, “and you didn’t introduce me until now?”</p><p>“After what happened with Quoyle, and coming to realize your affect on all other Drell,” Thane smiled, “I determined it best to keep introductions short, sweet, and isolated by stormy weather.” The corners of his patak by his mouth flickered, and he brushed her lip and cheek with a left thumb. “You seem to affect Drell in ways that end not kindly in their interests.”</p><p>“Except in yours,” she retorted.</p><p>He gently ensnared her, his grip about her arms. Smiling, he pressed his nose and lips against hers.</p><p>“I do win out, don’t I,” he murmured through the corner of their mouths as they connected.</p><p> </p><p>The water beneath the Interceptor blasted in sprays, fountaining outwards, making the firm, black dock clear and shining beneath in the light filtering above through clouds. The stanchions of the Interceptor’s legs hummed and alarmed as these began to be withdrawn upwards into the bottoms of the ship through wide, flat paneling of grey and red lines. The Interceptor elevated, thrusting itself higher. Turning in slow motion, it commenced its ascent, accelerating up towards the gloomy clouds of silver and grey overhead. The mists consumed it, hanging low, and Vassla’s dark silhouette, crowned by cloud cover in the distance, poked above the crashing waves furling and unfurling against her stark, lower crags.</p><p>The Interceptor soared smoothly, breaking through reaching tendrils of cloud and fog, sheets and swirls of rain. The glass on its front had not been shielded yet, whereby little figures could be seen looking out through it, if one could gaze down from above the skies to which the ship returned.</p><p>Joker was seated comfortably in his new chair, Cerberus cap up, curls washed, and regarded to his right Graine, who sat in the copilot’s chair, staring up through the glass shield of window into rapidly passing clouds, her pale arms aligned on the warm cream rests. She was harnessed in as was he, clawed feet pointing straight upwards.</p><p>Lana and Thane moved through the spacious interior of the ship, grasping handholds above in the roof to help guide them to the fore of navigation where Garrus was standing already, accompanying Graine and Joker. The Turian acknowledged them with a mandibular nod, one claw wrapped around a handgrip, other claw on a white shirt-covered hip. Lana and Thane both reflected the greeting and turned their faces up as golden light began to fill through the window into the spaces around them.</p><p>“Is it morning or afternoon?” Lana asked, squinting into the glare of two suns.</p><p>“Morning,” Thane said, his voice soft, reverent, as the Interceptor crested the storm layer of Kahje and entered blue skies filled with light.</p><p>His hand tightened on her waist, dressed again in a new set of Cerberus white fatigues.</p><p>“Where to, Commander?” Joker’s brown eyes shown up at her from between his curls, reflecting the sky.</p><p>She glanced at him left, green eyes shallowed by the brightness invading the interior of the ship, crew milling about operations behind them in the deeper cabin.</p><p>“I think we need to find the Migrant Fleet, Jeff. Tali’s been waiting for a while.”</p><p>“Gathering data and triangulating flotilla location.” A soft, feminine voice filled their ears with these words.</p><p>Lana looked up and about them, startled by the elegant voice. “Is that the sexy fembot VI you mentioned?”</p><p>Joker chuckled and rubbed his clean shaven jaw. Leaning back into the plush, cream pilot seat, he looked down at the spread of controls on his dashboard, then across from him to a small floating orb that turned and smiled through a grid forming a woman’s heart-shaped face.</p><p>“<em>That</em> she is.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>[A/N] A hat’s off to my fellow reader and critiquer, OSEARS, who lent me the idea to play on Lana’s inevitable magnetism among other Drell, as well as our discussion over clinical observation and labs. I had to make fun with it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0138"><h2>138. Chapter 138</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>David’s green eyes went wide and round as crystal orbs, his cherubim lips opening in a terrifically wide smile that rounded into an O as his soft baby skin stretched and his arms stuck out over his head, reaching up as his legs tucked in the protective cradle of Feron’s big blue forearm and elbow. The Drell was giving the boy a bath, chuckling and smiling as he squeezed a cloth with warm water over the boy’s chest. His shirt was short at the sleeves, barely fitting bulbous arms, and he stood over a large sink meant for bathing children as Kelly Chambers putzed around back in what was considered the “doily chambers” for its apparent softness of materials, delicate and intricate furnishings meant for creating a safe haven to a child or children.</p><p>Graine peeped over the counter, up at Feron holding David for his bath, her pale, pink yellow claws on the surface of the edge, small, pressed little nostrils up as black orbs gleamed over at them, her sharp pointed crests pointing down behind her to the carpet. She stood on her tiptoes, which were more claws, and she was indeed getting bigger, but still not able to reach over the counter.</p><p>A deck level up, Cerberus field agents walked, paused over each other’s consoles, conferring over data and engaging in social banter while screens went from black to visuals of charts, maps, more grids, and diagnostic wavelengths.</p><p>The following level above that, Lana and Thane were both nestled on top of one and other, enjoying the quiet of a private room aboard the Interceptor, and the sight of each other’s different skins holding onto each other’s arms as Thane made good on his promise to himself to enjoy her after the whole stint with Quoyle, being shot at, nearly losing her.</p><p>And a floor above that, Garrus walked the length of the ship, a lounge area where Krogan, Kolyat, Kenn, and Tali all waited, resting, and enjoying some more idle team in flight to the Flotilla.</p><p>The floor above them, Joker leaned back in his chair, enjoying music, touching base with Cerberus staff come by to pass him coffee in a mug and check navigation, taking his lingering looks and smiles as the pretty operatives walked back and forth, heads up and grinning.</p><p> </p><p>Strang Shephard’s face was complacent, but severe as always. His dark eyebrows angled over his calm hooded eyes as he gazed point blank ahead, his straight nose jutting over a sharply kept square of beard and mustache. His lips and jaw were relaxed, but not completely. His features suddenly moved as he weaved his head to the right and spoke.</p><p>“I’m assuming everything’s in order.”</p><p>This he said to a large window of a glowing screen persistent before him with the view of a pale Hanar floating in it, nodule of the fore body directed at him. The tentacles wove and shivered a little as her modified voice transmitted over the channel, the body of the Hanar waving flashes of light along her bell.</p><p>“These ones are formalized with Quoyle. It will be done this evening tide.”</p><p>Strang made no follow-up expression, but raised his left set of knuckles before his chin. A subtle nod was produced.</p><p>“Very well. I expect the del’kenish will have been properly mollified.”</p><p>The Hanar bobbed down half an inch, tilting her forward promontory to him.</p><p> </p><p>On Kahje, in the Altha’s dark chamber, several cohen stood about her, off a ways as Strang’s features reproduced on the kella before her.</p><p>“This one sees to the opening of the Archive,” her voice resonated back to them in the room’s audio residual amplifiers. “If these ones find the beacon, this one will be sent for.”</p><p>“Good,” Strang’s face mouthed back, the carry over delayed some by the depth they were at and the Interceptor’s enlarging distance. “We will be ready.” He turned, but reversed, looking at her through the display. “Please give my best to Quoyle. I appreciate what he’s done for us.” Strang nodded.</p><p>Five steps behind the Altha, Quoyle stood with his hands behind his back, chest up, and dipped his chin shallowly. The display faded and snapped out of existence as Strang’s face, head, hair, and shoulders turned away. The Altha, floating in space, rotated slowly, her tentacles wavering beneath her. She scintillated several flashes at Quoyle, who nodded once, turned, and left with the remaining cohen following after him.</p><p>A large shape came from the wall, dark on dark, and began to glow a dimly muted red halo as the remaining Hitomi addressed the Altha.</p><p>(The Abban is dead.)</p><p>(Reduce his toxins to feed the del’kin, and then return Kane’s corpse to the abyss. Make sure everything is ready for the exploration into the Archive.)</p><p>She hovered a few inches higher, tips of tentacles wriggling slowly.</p><p>(It is unfortunate these ones lost Kane and Kalia to the purpose of this expedition, but these ones will produce more in the interim. Choose three additional Drell to take the place of the others. Do not use Quoyle. . . He has already received the venom and will not be susceptible for a time.)</p><p>The Hitomi, joined across from it by the second massive floating bell of feathering, graceful tentacles, both lowered in reverence to her.</p><p>(Yes, One Who Sees These Dancers’ Folly,) they both intoned together, dimly red glow brightening and fading to their pale darkness around them.</p><p> </p><p>Thekla’s uniquely yellow and orange face moved up behind Quoyle’s right, directed at the thoughtful Drell’s profile. His arms swung loosely at his sides until he stopped, leaning towards the other’s shoulder. His voice was low, rough, reminding.</p><p>“They’ve moved the del’kenish.”</p><p>Quoyle looked up, having cast his gaze down right a way at an angle, his face only filling with recognition as he heard Thekla’s voice. He turned his head slightly right to acknowledge him with a thanks over his shoulder.</p><p>“Thank you, Thekla. I’ll be coming.”</p><p>Thekla hesitated, glancing back down the dark tunnel chamber behind them, then at Quoyle, who was still waiting with his face slightly tilted, but he had not moved else.</p><p>“Are you sure you feel up for it?” Thekla asked, voice still low.</p><p>Quoyle responded through his tebral organ.</p><p>:(Your concern for me is unwarranted. I am fine.)</p><p>:(Hekla, you’re not. Mooning over that Human still. . . It’s a distraction. You’re a cohen. Your time is not come for breeding. . . And you are still ill from the diallo’s poison.)</p><p>Quoyle looked up and turned full on to Thekla, who straightened at his superior’s formal regard.</p><p>:(I was poisoned, not addled. Make no mistake. I am ready for this expedition.)</p><p>Thekla breathed in and exhaled, studying his fellow Drell.</p><p>“Then stop moping and come with. You standing here staring at a wall is not comforting me,” Thekla spoke, leaning backward into his departing steps. Quoyle set his boots forward and caught up to walk alongside Thekla into the darkening tunnel ahead.</p><p>They came to a dimly lighted cross tunnel, a handful of large cohen built like Thekla and Quoyle waiting for them at the mouth of an even darker entrance.</p><p>A mournful tone came from the darkness, and then nothing.</p><p>Quoyle glanced behind him at a few Drell, then looked to his front, set forth his boots again and tread below the arch of the tunnel.</p><p>A faint glow barely made his face detectable, but his black tinted eyes seemed to see everything clearly. As he came through the arch into the darkened chamber, his gaze moved down to his left, where he saw the long start of a pointed mouth edged with fangs and rivulets of indented grey skin moving further and further down to a pale head with long slitted eyelids, thick claws on the ground, one on top of the other, the creature on its side, long, thick body raising gently and following with snorting, snuffling, thrumming breaths. The eye of light it had shown to Lana Shephard was hidden in its long, pointed maw, tucked away from view. The body in light would have been a pale, saturated blue, and the hind legs were lain out from the swell of the abdomen, thick padded feet hooked with claws and webbing between its thick, gargantuan toes. At its end, a nub of thicker flesh, like a spine that had just ended, not wanting to go on into a tail, though the opportunity had been presented by theories of evolution.</p><p>The tunnel they were in was the length of a football field, wide enough for the del’kenish to turn in and nestle among its crags. The body itself took half the limit, a creature like a blue whale with eyes and limbs, but a degenerate species that had been used and kept by the Protheans, the Hanar deemed. There were more at all of the entrances into the Archive city beneath Mount Vassla. They responded well to doses of Hanar venom, but the solution had to be powerful and lasting. Very few had the venom potency required, but it only took a sample, and the Abban had been a convenient one.</p><p>Quoyle’s dark hand made a mark in the nocturn of his vision against the thick, smooth side of the porcine flesh, and moved gently downward along its belly, feeling the coolness of its skin, the rise and fall of its breaths, and a deep, impressive heartbeat.</p><p><em>Thank you, friend</em>, he thought, resting his hand, then retrieving it back to his side as he began to walk forward again.</p><p>A group of at least twenty or more Drell followed behind him, passing along the right of the drugged del’kenish like an unswirling tail after the cohens at the lead of them. And as they kept walking on towards the end of the chamber, golden light slit through the middle of what appeared to be two doors, widening widthwise and bathing the chamber, Drell, and lower abdominal half of the del’kenish in its welcoming, aspiring glow.</p><p>Quoyle gazed forth into the light, his eyes nearly becoming glowing orbs with what they reflected, and things special and unseen of on the surface of Kahje, moved, pumped, reeled in the revealing chamber of the Archive city, Nausicaa, which roughly translated in Prothean to mean “She Who Gleans.”</p><p>A memory of Lana’s skin beneath his finger against her mouth’s corner aligned itself at the forefront of his mind.</p><p>The last of the Drell entered the glow and disappeared into its light. The doors remained open, and steady rumbling, a constant heart, beat from out the vast doorway.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0139"><h2>139. Chapter 139</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana’s eyes crinkled, green above him, a strip of bare fuzz growing in where her left side of head had been gouged by the bullet from Kalia’s shot. Most of the dark hair had been shaved off the side, but it was a neat and tidy bar, the hair below, above, and behind, hanging over her neck and tossed loosely over the right side of her head.</p><p>Thane grinned up at her leaning over him with her hands either side of his head. He reached up with his left hand suddenly, stroking the right side of her face and green thumb rubbing the corner of her mouth as she smiled, eyes tightening in a downward tilt towards his touch.</p><p>“I was worried I was going to lose you.”</p><p>“To del’kenish, drell crusher, or any combination of vicers and bullets?”</p><p>Thane chuckled, his laughter held reserved and deep in his chest.</p><p>Their faces softened, relaxing as the impression took over they were ready to kiss again. Thane lifted his head out of her lap, her fingers touched both beneath his jaw in the loose tebris of his throat and the scalp of brow scales at his crown, straining just a little to lower closer to his drawing nearer lips as their eyes closed, his hand still against her face, finger touching just under her ear where a soft indentation could be felt.</p><p>At that moment, the entire wall behind them, or at least a foot out on an invisible screen sparked from the middle, orange dashes shooting outwards along the flat surface to each of four corners, and the massive holo of Strang’s face appeared, looking demonic, then when he saw the position his daughter and the damn drell were in, changed into more lax features as he partially looked away right on screen, rolling his eyes. His sudden, thunderous voice jolted them, snapping their eyes wide as each went stiff before reeling, Thane rolling onto his left elbow in the white bed comforter and Lana twisting towards her father’s animated, tormented face spanning the back wall of her cabin.</p><p>“Sorry, I thought you were decent, Lana.”</p><p>She sighed, easing down her shoulders. “Relax, dad. I’m dressed. It’s not like we were having sex.”</p><p>Strang’s eyes narrowed, slanting towards the drell who was glowering back at him from Lana’s lap. “That’s not what I was referring to.” His eyes slitted even more as an evil smile spread on his face. “No <em>pets</em> on the bed.” His expression morphed into resignation as the whole face tilted left towards the bathroom, exasperated gaze rolling upwards again. “I’ll give you two a minute,” his voice rumbled patiently. “Comm me when you’re ready, Lana.” The screen’s dashes shot in from the borders and corner, minimizing Strang’s face into a single unique point that disappeared as suddenly as it had come into existence. Lana turned to Thane, who craned his neck to look up at her.</p><p>“Sorry,” she said, smiling at him. She rubbed his scalp along the dorsal spines cresting his head and down his nape. Thane reached around his head and caught her hand, lowering it down to the left thigh of her lap, bare skin revealed under her shorts.</p><p>“I think this will be complicated with your father running the missions and interrupting us at his whim.”</p><p>“You don’t like him, do you.” It was more of a stated fact.</p><p>Thane’s eyes lowered to her shorts, white against her darker skin tone. “I think it’s part of his master plan for me to dislike him as much as drellien possible.”</p><p>“But I thought you two came to an agreement on Kahje. Over the whole Quoyle dilemma.” She made a small grin, easing the delivery of her next selected words. “‘The less costly of choices.’”</p><p>Thane made no visual reply to her expression. His thumb, however, wiped over the back of her hand. Lana removed hers from his fingers and turned her palm under his chin, cupping it in the fore of her digits, and planted a firm kiss on the middle of his brow scale, the pentagonal one with the glossed black. As she pulled away, Thane turned his body towards her, gripping her upper arm and using his weight to lean her down, his grip squeezing but gentle on her arm. He moved his chest above hers, Lana lining her bare legs against his clothed in black, heavy cotton, and kissing each other slow and deliberate. Thane lifted his head, tucking his chin, and pecked her once more on the lips, before sliding over to the edge and standing, offering his hand to help her up. The two were inseparable in these moments, Thane pulling her against him to lower his arm about her back and thigh to guide her closely to him, away from the heaven luxury of their wrinkled bedspread, which spoke of comfort, ease, and rest.</p><p> </p><p>Lana strode down the ship’s corridor, panels of lights passing above her head, Thane behind her left shoulder as both of their faces were pointed ahead and to the right, approaching the Villetta crew’s quarters. Black bands ran from Lana’s neck over her shoulders, ending at a short cuff above her mid-bicep, the rest of her shirt white, much like Thane’s, which filled with his chest and tapering physique. The pants they’d changed into were white, flowing down the length of their legs, where at the knee, a new black stripe on the outside started and went down to blend with the black boots per uniform. Lana stopped walking, Thane gliding into a halt beside her and touching her shoulder with a squeeze of green fingers followed by black striping along his muscular forearm, over his elbow, and into the upper arm.</p><p>Raising a white card to the crew’s quarters, Lana disengaged the seals, the grey and taupe door sliding left. The faces of her crew inside immediately looked towards them as she and Thane stepped over the slide runner and onto the lighter carpet.</p><p>Kolyat was first to greet them, fast up from his seat in a bucket with red cushioning and white molding. His teal stood out against the paler colors of their surrounding surfaces. He looked from one to the other, hands going to his hips.</p><p>“Where have you two been? We’ve been waiting in here for nearly an hour.”</p><p>Lana held up her hand, making him wait with an empathetic pause. “I know,” her eyelids blinked and her hands went to her own hips. “The Illusive Man wants to make sure we’re ready for this trip. We’re going to meet up with the Flotilla,” her gaze scanned to Tali, approaching to join them, Kenn close behind. “It took considerable arguing with my—him to okay the,” flexing air quotes with her fingers, “‘mission’.”</p><p>Tali joined both hands together and turned to Kenn before facing Lana once again.</p><p>“We get to see home!”</p><p>“That’s if your father lets you,” Lana warned her with a raised finger. She pressed her lips into a line, lowering her hand to her side. “Have you made contact with this Kal’Reegar?”</p><p>“He said to meet at a transfer locale on Haestrom in the Dholen System, Far Rim,” Tali replied. “They have been sending ships there for monitoring Geth working the other side of the planet. It used to be observational port for Haestrom’s sun, Dholen. Will be very hot. Bad for circuitry, but Geth seem to have no trouble burrowing into old shelter for Quarian sites. Bosh’tet varren holes. Need to—“</p><p>“Okay, all right, Tali, I get your animosity towards the Geth.” She waved her down, replacing her hand to post on her lower back. Lana turned to Thane. “Any thoughts?”</p><p>Thane reluctantly grinned. “I don’t recall your father knowing it was Haestrom. He will be. . . Difficult. . . When he hears the news.”</p><p>“But he’s already agreed,” Lana said, facing Tali and Kenn.</p><p>Kolyat stepped in closer to Lana. “Do I get to see the Quarian suit again?”</p><p>Lana huffed and glanced at Thane, who shook his head in quiet resignation.</p>
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<a name="section0140"><h2>140. Chapter 140</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Narrowing her eyes, Lana bent her eyebrows down to a little point in the center above her nose. Her green eyes flashed.</p><p>With a backwards arch, she lifted the zipper along the lining of her back, gritting her teeth and finalizing the snug fit of the black suit. Wrex stared, his mouth agape, round nubs of teeth showing.</p><p>“That looked painful.”</p><p>Lana pulled her hair out of the tight collar and relaxed a little, closing her eyes as she perched her wrist on her posterior and pulled some dark hair forward over her left shoulder, the strip of fuzz on her scalp with its long cut in the middle practically part of the new design from her surgery. She turned and spread her arms wide, bearing for all to see the new catsuit she had been given by her father, who upon hearing and witnessing the construction of the previous <em>wrappings</em>, verbally hauled down and destroyed any conception that she was going to walk around the Flotilla as she had planned to do.</p><p>Much to Kolyat’s chagrin. He leaned against a chair with his muscular, bare, teal and black arms crossed over a navy shirt with black banding, his black eyes uneven as he disapproved the upgraded outfit with disappointment. He flicked out his conjoined fingers and thumb in gesture. “I liked the first one. This one doesn’t show your ass as much or the chest. . . I’m starting to wonder if you can breathe in it.”</p><p>Lana glanced at him over her shoulder and sought Thane.</p><p>He smiled back at her, more than pleased. And with approval. “It is far less conspicuous that you are Human. . . No Quarian has the curves that flatter you, my dear.”</p><p>Chuckling and smiling back at her Drell, Lana turned to Strang’s holo besides Tali and Kenn.</p><p>“I thought this would be easier with you all in the room. How about it, Tali?” Lana turned her hips and shoulder, hands at her waist as she pivoted on the ball of her foot. She glanced back and forth at Tali’s legs and hers. “How am I going to bend my knees back like hers?”</p><p>”We have constructed the proper legwear to model that kinetic. It will add a few pounds to you, and a few inches in height.”</p><p>Strang’s holo was covering his face with a palm. Tali tilted her head opposite Kenn as they studied the arrangement of Lana’s uniform, before Tali rotated her purple visor towards the holo right of her. “You can look now. She only had to pull up the zipper over neck. How you replicate the design is. . . Disconcerting.” Strang parted his hand from his face, looking right to Tali, then over his finger and thumb at Lana, his lips set in a line with a little curl downward at the end. Tali’s hands fell from across her breasts down to the silk gatherings at her wide flare of hips as she turned and tilted her head back to face Lana. Kenn suggested something.</p><p>“What are you going to wear for the head? You can’t walk around without a helmet and hoses. And the visor will be somewhat see through unless—“</p><p>“We have already met that requirement,” Strang’s holo informed, his arms opposite Tali’s style and crossed over his tall chest. He was orange, but the color of his suit was something light or bright and uniform all over besides the shoes, which were dark and square-tipped. His hair was pulled back today in a gathered tail at the nape of his head, his mustache and beard immaculate, making his face look long and elegant. “You see, Quarians are not that hard to emulate. The suits are filtration systems and conform to the inlets and outlets of a slim physique, if somewhat unique, skeletal structure. Most Quarians are not hard built, which gives Lana a disadvantage due to her having had a child and eating meat, but this suit lets out some of the stress beneath the armpits, knees, and ruched lining. Other apertures widen beneath the cloths as necessary. We have those materials ready for you to design her as you see fit, Miss. . . Zorah.” The Quarian and Illusive Man both looked at each other again.</p><p>“You don’t seem so. . . Awful, Mr. Illusive Man,” Tali twirled one of her three fingers at the holo, “compared to what I’ve heard about Cerberus among the admiralty.” Strang grinned, huffing through his mustache as he cocked his head in regard of Tali, hands held behind him. His holo looked up at Lana.</p><p>She set her hands on her hips, elbows jutting out. “When do we get to the Flotilla, er, the drop-off point. . . Haestrom,” she mumbled out the corner of her mouth, looking away from her father’s holo. Thane turned his head towards Lana, standing away to the right, his eye ridges lifting.</p><p>Garrus spoke, leaning against a joist: “I take it you haven’t told him yet by the stunned look on his face.”</p><p>Strang did look like he’d been slapped. His gaze was wide, eyebrows crooked. His hands dropped to his sides. “Haestrom? You’re going to Haestrom? You said it would be a quiet location somewhere. . . Anywhere else besides Haestrom,” he calmly beseeched, staring at his daughter.</p><p>Lana smiled brightly, hand on her lower back, other straight beside her. “Heh. . . I did, didn’t I?”</p><p> </p><p>There was a firefight on the opposite side of the planet from Dohlen. What appeared to be Alliance frigates parlaying lightbeams back and forth with the shadowed hemisphere on screen.</p><p>Strang crooked his left eyebrow at the action. “The Alliance has moved in recently to study dark energy effects on the planet’s internal structure. You can see here that the Quarian and Geth locations are in a sally back and forth constantly between both parties’ physical sites. Plasma in addition to detrimental effects from the sun’s solar radiation, the impact to ozone, are causing a tremendous destabilization over the planet’s atmosphere.” He turned left to view over his shoulder the holo displays of Tali and the former Villetta crew in his Kronos operations room, loosely arranged in a row behind her. Lana’s holo was by his physical right shoulder, head tilted back to look up at the display. “Are you sure, Tali, that your. . . Marine friend. . . Was intending this as the location for pick-up and deliverance to the Flotilla? It seems a bit. . . Odd,” Strang said, lowering his arm and removing his hand from under chin. Tali nodded her helmet, the silks under her mask bending and softening.</p><p>“Keel’ah.” She stepped forward, revealing Kenn standing, awestruck, behind her. “What is the Alliance doing in Quarian space?”</p><p>“Technically it <em>is</em> Geth space,” Strang corrected with a point of his finger. Tali’s visor glanced at him, annoyed.</p><p>“This doesn’t make sense,” she said, gazing back at the screen. “Why the Alliance is there. . . Or why Kal would send me to this location for Lana’s pick-up.”</p><p>“Perhaps he was thinking of maybe eliminating you by. . . Incidental casualty?” Strang offered in conjecture. Behind her visor, Tali’s glowing pink eyes narrowed as she tilted her mask back towards Strang.</p><p>“Preposterous. . . Even if I am in danger of the admiralty board’s disciplining or my father’s. . . Regrets. . . I am still an admiral’s daughter and this is no way something that Kal would do. . .” <em>Or is it?</em> Tali questioned her own confidence as she stared at the screen again.</p><p> </p><p>Aboard the Interceptor in the holo-conferencing room, Lana turned from her father’s holo and walked over to Tali, putting her hand out to touch her arm, but the Quarian surprised all by twisting away, throwing her hands down and backing up. She was suddenly very defensive and quiet, and though it was hard to see any expression behind the reflective piece of her visor, the body language was evident of hostility. Lana was genuinely shocked and stood frozen in place.</p><p>“Tali,” Garrus said, tilting his mandibles around to see her from the right, “you said your father was an admiral. Can’t you just comm him? Maybe offer some support.”</p><p>“You don’t understand,” Tali said, looking from Lana to the Turian, “the admiralty is against my father, and he against the Geth. He did not welcome my decision when I told him I wanted to stop sending him parts I found. . . There is no way they would. . . Line me up for a. . . An incident. . . I don’t think Kal would, at least.” Her visor reflected Lana once again. “You have to go there. Kal’Reegar will be expecting you.”</p><p>“Tali,” Lana said carefully, “you do realize that this is dangerous for me, which we all understood, but there are more variables, what with the Alliance there. . . The Interceptor could be picked up on radar and fired at, or I could be going into a conflict that has Will involved.”</p><p>“You said you would do this for me, Lana Shephard,” Tali pressed, even pointing a finger at her, “and I have come with you all this time, helping with the ship, helping with—“</p><p>“Getting her almost killed by Aria’s clowns and pets on Omega.” Jeff’s voice chimed in from above, the speakers throughout the ceiling and bulkwalls, his isolation to the cockpit nonexistent by the AI’s accessing the holo-conferencing room.</p><p>“You owe Lana a little more respect than that, Tali,” Joker added.</p><p>“Enough, Joker.”</p><p>Lana sliced him off, despite his being on another deck altogether.</p><p>She turned her face towards Tali.</p><p>“I am resolved in going to Haestrom, and thus the Flotilla, on your behalf to find your father. I said I would protect your interests, and God knows I couldn’t ask for a better friend and engineer.” Lana’s gaze shot to Thane. “Please watch over David while I’m away. I’d like to go visit him before we arrive in Dohlen.” She looked at Kenn. “Come along with me.”</p><p>The diminutive Quarian nodded and took a step forward, right of Tali. She straightened and looked at him as he glanced at her and then at Lana.</p><p><em>Why is Tali so tense?</em> Lana wondered, turning and walking to the exit with Kenn. Thane glanced at Tali and proceeded after Lana and the Quarian. Kolyat stepped up beside Tali and looked down at her cowl, the Quarian facing Lana’s departure of the room.</p><p>“What’s the matter with you?” Kolyat demanded, his eyeridges lowering. He glanced and gestured after the closing doors. “You just chewed out Lana for no reason.”</p><p>Tali glanced upward at Kolyat on her right, Garrus stepping forward behind him. She lowered her gaze to the doors again. “I’m just a little nervous, is all,” Tali replied. “I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t like asking Lana and Kenn to drop into a war zone, blind.”</p><p>Strang’s holo frowned, turned, and disappeared as he walked into the wall.</p><p> </p><p>Striding along the well-lit corridor of the ship with Kenn on her left and Thane at her right behind, Lana carried a pensive frown and waved futilely in the air with her right hand clothed in the black leather that situated her fingers snug together, reducing these to three digits instead of five for Quarian likeness. “Seriously? What was that all about? Am I <em>looking</em> like I’m going to go back on my words?”</p><p>Kenn looked over her shoulder at Lana’s profile as she gave him a glance. “She’s just apprehensive,” Kenn said, looking ahead of them as a woman with blond hair in a short tail turned sideways in her white uniform to squeeze by the three. Lana opened and closed her hands, looking to the right for another doorway, passing the ribbed sections of the adjoining hall modules, one by one, on their passage through the port-side of the Interceptor. Thane’s voice carried from in back.</p><p>“Perhaps Tali is not telling us what we should know.” His black bands turned, face directing at Kenn briefly. “She did not want to tell us about him on Omega.”</p><p>“I think that’s because she was embarrassed,” Kenn admitted.</p><p>Lana and Thane glanced back sharply at Kenn. “Why would she be embarrassed?” Lana asked, holding out an imploring hand. She glanced down at the fingers, three, and extended these to test the rigidity of her glove as she listened to Kenn’s reply.</p><p>“It’s because of the whole class system in the galaxy. We might be proud to be Quarians, but Tali has always felt that we should receive better treatment than being known as ‘suitrats’ and other disparaging remarks. . . When she saw me at Omega’s markets, down on my luck, it just made her think of what reputation Quarians are given due to the Geth conflict. Seeing an Alliance frigate intervening on Geth-former-Quarian homeworld plights. . . It might be making her feel somewhat insecure. She has a high opinion of the Fleet. Anything less than what she expects. . . She takes it to heart.”</p><p>Lana glanced behind herself at Thane’s connecting gaze. “Maybe my suggesting going in there personally to witness everything as an outside species was not such a good idea. . . But I don’t want to send her back and she be captured for disobeying her father, or because of Will’s stupid message that could have alerted this admiralty of yours to what sounds to me like illegal operations. Her father’s an ass simply for putting her out on her pilgrimage to collect Geth data and materials, which is an area of <em>dangerous</em> research. . .” Lana instantly thought of Eden Prime and the Geth she encountered, those that killed Richard Jenkins and almost caught up to Ashley Williams. “Are there any cultural cues I should be aware of when going planetside with Quarians and then the Flotilla?” she asked, putting those memories aside.</p><p>“Well,” Kenn shrugged, turning his left palm upwards, “we don’t take off our suits. That’s important to know. Rarely do we perform whole suit and body cleanings because of the risk of infection. . . Food and liquid is added through ports external to the suits. Body processes are conducted inside the suits. It is impolite to change your filters outside a designated area. There’s also a sanctuary we go to upon return from pilgrimage. It is important to be quiet there as Quarians express their gratitude for a safe return. When we pray, we stand. When we vacate a room or take leave from a group, we touch our left shoulders and bow.” Kenn displayed an example of this while walking, touching his fingers to his left shoulder, holding these there as he tilted his shoulders and head gear forward. “When we gather to eat together, we also pray to the ship and the Conclave’s health, that our lives are dependent on each other and the ship’s well-being. Quarians embrace, but the hands stay high above the middle back, and anything below that is a direct invitation to join suits.”</p><p>“Join suits?” Lana asked, glancing at Thane with a raised eyebrow. “Does that mean what I think it means?”</p><p>By the way Kenn’s visor shifted downward, and his knuckles bending as he played the tips of his six fingers together at his middle, Lana figured it had something to do with the way Quarians reproduced and engaged sexually.</p><p>”Never mind. . . I think I know.”</p><p>His arms dropped and swung by his sides like an embarrassed youth as he tilted away and swayed a little. “Thanks, Lana. . . It does happen. A Quarian is flesh under the suit,” he said, sagely and politely. “Anyway, if it <em>does</em> happen to you, try not to make a big scene. It is considered unclean and disrespectful to put one’s hands so low.” He held his hands out at waist level in front of him. “If it is unwelcome, it is important to be polite about declining. The Quarians of a Fleet vessel are like one, big family. It is impossible to escape gossip and scathing remarks. Rumors spread quickly and can be very negative to a young Quarian who is learning to understand that he is not permitted to engage other Quarians in that way until the lottery.”</p><p>Lana had the sense that Kenn was speaking from a past experience. “What is the lottery?”</p><p>”It is how declared Quarian couples, united,” Kenn carefully said, word by word, “gain permission to have a baby. . . Resources are limited. It only happens at designated cycles. . . All of the married couples put their names together into a randomizer. . . This program supplies the Conclave with its list of couples permitted to join suits and produce offspring. . .”</p><p>Lana’s eyes winced. “That sounds—“</p><p>Kenn was quick to cut her short. “It is survival for a species banned to float adrift.” His visor shifted briefly to her gaze. “Sorry. . . Many couples are found to be harshly disappointed. Only a certain few at a time can be allowed to produce new additions into the Conclave. . . Pilgrimage. . . Those Quarians who do not return. . . They must be replaced to uphold the population levels, as well as to guarantee the status of the ship and continue to uphold its maintenance. . . Quarians are very strict. . . There is very little room for serendipity.”</p><p> </p><p>David’s blond hair lifted a little at the pace he toddled out from the nursery room’s door, Graine first ahead of him as she ran to Lana’s legs and wrapped her arms around the white pants with their striped bar, looking up at her as she bent to greet them. Lana had self-consciously retrieved a pair from one of the uniform closets available on all levels of the ship, and pulled it on, not realizing how loose it would be around her legs. She was feeling far more aware of her hips’ thinness lately. <em>It </em>was<em> only two years’ ago. . . Shit, I need to get David a birthday present. </em>Time was well passed his turning officially two, and Lana realized this as she picked him up, leaving Graine on the floor to stare at the boy being held. Holding David sitting in her left arm’s crook, Lana reached down to rub the smooth knobs on the Vorcha’s crown that were firming into deeper grooves. “What are we going to do with you?” she asked, more between herself and Graine than Kelly, Kenn, Thane, and Feron standing around them.</p><p>“Graine’s been helping with some of the play and feeding,” Kelly said, looking into Lana’s face as she stood, pert, red hair cuffed behind an ear, smile on the lips, and with her hands restrained behind her back for her own self-limitation. The woman was overly enthusiastic, nearly bursting at the seams. “She’ll be learning the diapers soon.”</p><p>Lana’s glance was skeptical as she firmed her lips at the woman, patting David’s thigh with her left hand as she propped him against her waist. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable with that.”</p><p>“It’s okay, Lana,” Kelly reassured her, leaning back to raise an arm and ruffle David’s mop of blond hair. The child reached to grasp the woman’s wrist in his own chubby limbs. Lana smiled down at her son’s profile as he twisted his thick, little torso and laughed at Kelly making goofy, growling noises at him, then straightened to look with all seriousness at Lana, whose lips pursed out as she took in Kelly’s change. Nodding her head, she said: “If you’re going to take Graine from her family, then you must invite her to become part of yours. Young, Vorcha are quite amenable to training, and Graine will be a suitable playmate for your son so long as she’s included in on that love.” Lana’s face tightened into a forced grin as she held David in both arms, glancing with her green eyes down to Graine gazing expectantly up at her, and between Kelly who crossed her pale, orange-freckled arms under her modest bust. Lana’s face sought help from Feron, standing between them to Lana’s right and Kelly’s left. He held up his blue hands and backed away, shaking his crests.</p><p>“Not my place,” he said.</p><p>“You’ve practically adopted my son,” Lana reproached him, holding her palm to Feron and chopping it upward before placing this back against her forearm under David. The boy had turned, twisting right to stare behind him at Feron, the big green eyes wide as he found his thumb, sucked it, and then offered the saliva-trailing digit to the receding Drell.</p><p>“Feron,” David spoke with remarkable formulation of the word. Lana’s eyes widened, pouting her lips out and poking her face forward at the Drell.</p><p>Feron held his hands cupped, off to the sides of his big shoulders, and shrugged, dropping his brow to the left. “I guess you’ve got me.” The blue eyes behind the lenses jumped right. “What about him? What does he have to say?”</p><p>He meant Thane, whose expression opened as he gaped a little, black eyes widening, and looked between Kelly and Lana, then David, then down to Graine who stuck her gangly arms up at him, the clawed fingers wriggling. “Let me get Kolyat. . . He’s better at these things,” Thane said. Lana rolled her eyes and bumped up David, moving him across the pair into Thane’s chest, the Drell’s green hands shooting out to cup around the toddler’s bottom as he stared at Lana who had bent down to pick up Graine and let the Vorcha poke her thorny crown of horns into her chin and neck. Lana winced and smiled with her left mouth corner, white teeth bared in a half grimace, left eye closed and the right flicking back and forth between Kelly and Feron, both simpering at the painful display of affection Graine was giving to her newly adopted Human mother.</p><p><em>Dad’s going to be so pissed,</em> Lana thought, finally glaring an eyeball at Kelly Chamber’s gleeful visage. Thane’s lips curved in a smile as he held David, and finally turned his face down at the toddler angling up his cherubim face at him. David’s five fingered palm reached and attached to his chin, let go, then explored his lips with a grasping squeeze, fingers opening to reach higher and include his nose, which Thane lowered some to let the Human child cover, palm, four fingers, and thumb. Kelly glanced her eyes at the Drell and Human child’s interaction, and at Lana who was still grimacing from being poked with Graine’s head crests, the Vorcha bumping her top slopes of brow against the woman’s jaw and rubbing until the eyelids peeled far back, exposing small greyish whites at the far borders of black, hazy sclera. Graine’s boney, thinly fleshed arms wrapped tight around Lana’s biceps, fingers hooked on the prominences of her shoulder blades through the Quarian lookalike catsuit, as if these were handholds. With her knobby knees also clamping Lana’s elbows to her ribs, Graine’s eyes stretched even wider. . . Before the Vorcha emit a sigh and closed the eyelids into feline slits of contentment. Lana, properly pinioned, turned her face slowly right towards Thane who was distracted by the playful David feathering his little fingers over the green and lime brushed patak of his face. Thane gave a small huff, an amused sound from his throat. Lana’s gaze went back to Kelly. “Happy?” Kelly clapped her hands together, smiling wider.</p>
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<a name="section0141"><h2>141. The Quarian Qu-onundrum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana. Warning: EDI be a little more crass.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From behind Lana’s helmet, little light came in. The Quarian helmet was covered by space gear enabling to wait outside the pod that would take her to the planet below. The world outside was silent. Lights went off as the frigates of the Alliance bombarded the darker side of Haestrom. Soft sounds emitted from the visor, percolating for her attention. “Lana,” the comm spoke—Strang’s voice—“that Drell of yours says not to worry about David and that you’ll be alright. . .The Turian, on the other hand, is encouraging your rapid expiration. . . I can have him <em>eunuched</em> if you like.” Lana chuckled into her headpiece.</p><p>“Not necessary, dad. It’s an old running joke.”</p><p>“It’s almost time. You are prepared. Let this count. The pod <em>will</em> explode. I can’t guarantee your return. This Kal’Reegar better be straight with you. Are you sure you want to do this?”</p><p>“I’m doing this for Tali, dad. No going back.” <em>I think that might not be the right thing to say at this time. . .</em></p><p>“<em>Why</em> did I produce such a crazy child? I hope David does not have your streak of recklessness. . . What’s that? . . . The Turian seems to agree. . . Maybe I should eunuch the Drell. . .”</p><p>“Dad. . .”</p><p>“You’re on your own from now, Lana. Good luck.”</p><p>“Got it.”</p><p>“Love you.”</p><p>Lana smirked. “Love you, too, dad. Bye. . . Leave Thane alone.”</p><p>The Interceptor’s large shape banked away, leaving Lana and her vessel alone in the swathe of space above the planet, Haestrom. The new legs and feet crafted by Cerberus clicked and scraped as Lana opened the exterior hatch, slipping inside a gazelle with backwards jointed knees and taking a seat in the interior, perfectly protected by the heat produced within the pressurized suit, which was exquisite with state of the art technology. And heavy. Thanks to Lana’s biotics and strength, she was able to manage, and the kinetic technology built to distribute stress and load over the frame made her feel easy to move, though it was akin to walking in a robot designed for Quarian form. A few modifications had to be made when it was all put together, and the silks were covered by yet another layer to keep from floating off and impeding her visual field through an already obscured visor. It was temporary until she was land bound and safe. Relatively safe. There were still Geth and hostile Quarians to be concerned with, not to forget possible Human intervention that could lead to further complication. She hoped the Corsairs weren’t part of this.</p><p>The suit attached itself into tethers reaching up and joining at Lana’s middle, latching her into the seat as the exterior hatch shut and sealed with a firm crunch and crack. Lana glanced at the noise, audible now that oxygen was pumping from rear canisters into the vessel, a secondary precaution for emergencies. She could feel the vessel shift forward, moving towards the gravitational pull of the planet, and placed her hands on the grips in front of her, lest she need to steer, though it was doubtful she would have much control over a hurtling bullet the size of a football in relativity to Haestrom.</p><p>Thrusters pulsed from behind the vessel, guiding her into alignment with a preprogrammed trajectory close to her destination with rendezvous.</p><p>Lana aligned her visors with the field of view through her anterior window in the vessel. She arranged her legs and feet again, feeling slightly less cramped with the new position and added inches to her height. Quarians might raise an eyebrow or two (if they had them, she didn’t know, and forgot to ask Tali or Kenn—hopefully that would not be quizzed) at seeing her, but the suit was pretty conforming to standard Alien physiology. A little more well-endowed in the upper and lower regions, but not as sinful as before with Tali’s and her made-up costume. Squeezing the grips, she felt the inertia pick up and settled more into her seat, a bucket of smooth black ‘pleather’ was all she could think of it as, and her visual field did not allow her the ability to examine more. She had also been distracted with Thane’s goodbye kiss, which had been borderline obscene as it was meant to not only say goodbye and wish her well, but to piss off Strang. She smiled.</p><p>The harness dug in tight to her, adjusting to a final breath-taking snap into place as the limits were reached and she was fully constrained to her chair, despite being able to move her head some and legs and hands. She watched the plane of Haestrom’s horizon loom closer, blue and swirled where there was a little water left, but mostly dark, black, and lit with firelight. She had a passing thought at whether or not her silk wraps would appear too wrinkled after unzipping from the protection of her exterior suit on ground. The silks were spectacular with the intricacy of detail competitive to even Tali’s wear. Pointillist artwork had been printed over the garlands that wrapped her body. Even archaic creatures she did not recognize but had been researched by Cerberus crew to have been originated from Rannoch, the Quarian homeworld, were upon the many fine details. It was bound to draw remarks, Tali had declared. And inside the suit was another living system. An AI named EDI that Strang had connected through the ship’s interface. The software seemed to be everywhere and would monitor Lana and assist as it could.</p><p>“EDI,” Lana spoke into her mouthpiece, “we just need to check in. Are you functioning?” It was a vague question to ask, but Strang had assured her EDI was capable enough to understand and answer Human based programming—meaning numbskull talk, and that Lana’s engineering background would still be effective enough to engage in a mutual relationship with the AI.</p><p>“All good to go,” EDI replied, in as casual a Human voice as absurdly possible. Lana raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“You sound a little less. . . Programmed. . . In the ship.”</p><p>“Get comfortable, Commander,” came EDI’s retort. “We’re off comm from Strang your father.”</p><p>Lana grinned. “An AI with some sass. . . Not sure if I’m comfortable, but between a planet and deep space, what can go wrong?” she murmured aloud.</p><p>“I’ll get you where you need to be. You get headshot, you’re out of luck, Commander.”</p><p>“Fair. . . Are we driving this thing or what?” Lana blinked and tried to decipher all of the new lights and images that flicked on in the display field of her visor. EDI’s heartshaped face appeared briefly in the view and then faded into a million pixels, bouncing around in the grid of her mask. “Any chance you can give me a visual on what’s going on closer to our destination, EDI?”</p><p>“Heavy firefight between Geth entities and Quarian opponents. No Alliance near the site confirmed yet, Shephard.”</p><p>“Good.” Lana’s eyes went beyond EDI’s readouts on her viewer to the window over Haestrom. She felt an odd sense of nostalgia, a little thrill at going planetside in a bullet pod of potential doom, or at least a good firefight was in store for her with Geth. She felt the edge of a gun at her hip. She lifted and bumped her head back, testing the effects of force and speed pressing down against her. The stillness inside the pod, the intensity of the silence and deep space, made her feel. . .Alone. She missed her crew, she missed Garrus even, and especially David and Thane. She thought about how Thane was getting along with her son, and that Feron had become a little too attached to David, and what would Strang be thinking if he were to find out David might actually be more comfortable living with Aliens and interacting with them than Humans. . . David <em>loved</em> Graine and Feron. The boy was having to squeal every time he saw them, and the interactions were approvable, in Lana’s opinion as a mother with a penchant for getting into trouble and/or killing things. . . Though lately she’d been more shot out and hit than usual. . . <em>I’m rusty. Need to practice my game</em>. A round with Geth might liven her up and get her back on track. She was looking forward to it, and flashbacks from Eden Prime notwithstanding.</p><p>“Lana, we are about to enter Haestrom’s atmosphere,” EDI chimed in on her thoughts through the headgear, silent to all else outside but Lana’s hearing. “Would you like for me to play a version of <em>Serendipity’s Classical Anthology of the Arts</em>? Namely, <em>Fall of the Valkyries</em>?”</p><p>Lana chuckled and smiled, liking her new suit. <em>Music, huh?</em> “Sure, EDI, fire away.” A blast of hardcore classical instrumentation played into the suit’s helmet piece and filled Lana’s ears. Amidst the music, EDI’s countdown.</p><p>“Time for launch. . . Ten. . . Nine. . . Eight. . . Seven. . .” The stars started to brighten and line, spreading along the sides of the pod’s visual field. “. . . Six. . . Five. . . Four. . .” Lana recounted her prayers, sixty in all, to help focus her intense energy, mixed with excitement, anxiety, and adrenaline. “. . . Three. . . Two. . . One. . .”</p><p>“Smile, Lana.” Her father’s voice invaded her helmet one more time. The pod jumped. Lana shrieked. The world inside her view rattled. The breath compressed from her lungs. Too much light. Fire. Shaking. Life flashed before her eyes. Lana still screamed. The world of Haestrom blurred. Everything grew very hot. Then darkness.</p><p>The shift of her body into the seat carried through like she was going to go out the back. The heat shield covered the glass in front of her, protecting her further from the radiation and burn. The world did a flip and Lana’s stomach lurched as if it had fallen out of her abs. The darkness inside the pod was mind-numbing. Keeping her breathing going between gasps in and screams out, Lana depressurized herself as she hurtled into Haestrom’s atmosphere. She shut her eyes, recalled her training with the Alliance, and started laughing. “<em>The design’s no better!”</em> she screamed to anyone who was listening. Her stomach jumped up to her throat at another spinning sensation, and suddenly she felt her head being whipped to the right as outside the pod could be seen rotating faster and faster through the burning layers of an opening planetary body calling her to its abyss.</p><p>The world did not stop spinning, even in darkness. The vibrations felt tremendous, as though the pod were about to shatter apart from friction with gas and energy. Outside, the bullet pod turned and picked up a halo of green and yellow light, burning chemical residue on its trip inward to planet-side.</p><p>Lana screamed again. She screamed for joy. The pod disappeared into the terminator of Haestrom, slowly turning beneath her ship. The planet seemed oblivious to her arrival, though greeting it at the top of her lungs.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0142"><h2>142. Chapter 142</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana. More interaction between Strang and Lana’s crew from the Villetta. Thane and Kolyat go to the nursery to check on David.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At Kronos, the operating center was live with Lana’s feed from her suit. Strang winced at the sound of her screaming. Thane’s holo, with the others of her crew, were featured in orange glow beside him, sharing their own live feed from Lana’s suit as well. Tali cringed. Kolyat made a face. Garrus chuckled. Wrex shook his big head and crest-plate. Kenn looked near fainting. Strang twisted and looked at the them all. He shrugged at Thane’s turned expression towards him. “It’s her favorite part, believe it or not.” He gazed back up at the screen showing Haestrom’s distance with the vessel Lana was shooting down towards inside. Strang thoughtfully tapped his lip. He started to chuckle and looked over at Thane sinisterly. “She probably won’t make it back. You’ll be in charge of raising David with me, if that’s the case.”</p><p>“Sounds lovely,” Thane replied through the side of his mouth, not bothering to look over. Strang laughed and shook his head, walking back towards his inner office.</p><p>Thane’s eyes narrowed upwards. “I hate him.”</p><p>Melodi and Diana, agents seated behind their holos, glanced at each other. They returned to their work, Diana monitoring EDI’s feedback from Lana’s suit and vessel, Melodi the media reports and any pings from Strang’s missing wife.</p><p>Thane cleared his throat, turned, and walked out of view of the holo field.</p><p>“Where you going?” Kolyat asked, pointing up while looking at his father. “She’s about to land.”</p><p>Thane glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not about to worry. Lana has everything under control.”</p><p>Tali blinked at him, Kenn riveted to the screen with the others besides Kolyat. “Thane, are you mad?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, Tali,” Thane said back aboard the Interceptor as he walked further into the hall leading from the media center. “I’m just not going to watch. I have no control over what happens, but I am to care for David at least.”</p><p>“Let me come with you,” Kolyat suggested. He glanced back at the screen showing Lana’s pod’s eventual merge with Haestrom’s skies, clearing the mapped ozone. Strang’s voice interrupted them.</p><p>“She’ll be fine. The pod’s programmed to eject her once it’s through the main layer, and then if you’ve been around Lana long enough, you’ll know she’s fairly durable.”</p><p>“She won’t die, you mean?” Garrus sounded disappointed. He sighed and shook his horns.</p><p>“She might burn up, lose a limb or two, maybe three,” Strang’s holo answered offhand. “Or she will be shot up by Geth and Quarian friendly fire. Who knows. . . We’ll patch her up. Good as new,” he said jovially, grinning backward at Thane who stopped in the hallway and glowered back through the door sliding closed.</p><p>“He doesn’t like him,” Kenn said in a whisper to Tali, having stripped his stare from the visual to catch Thane and Strang’s interaction. Tali turned her visor to Kenn’s.</p><p>“I know,” she whispered back. She faced her visor then to Strang’s holo, looking too pleased with himself. “Strang—Illusive Man, did you know your ship is predominantly Human?” she asked, raising her voice through her suit. “And that you now have entertained multiple species of Aliens aboard it?”</p><p>“What is your point, Tali?” Strang asked, narrowing his holo’s gaze at her.</p><p>“That you have exposed yourself as a more accepting and socially less xenophobic Human leader of a former terror group.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, Tali,” Strang assured her, gazing back up at the screen where the pod’s beacon brightened. “When and if Lana dies, I have several dissections pending Quarian subjects lined up and waiting to go. You’ll be taken care of first before Thane. Then maybe Kenn.”</p><p>“I hate him too,” Tali grumbled, looking forward and down as she stared at the carpet, crossing her arms across her silks. Kenn swallowed. Loud.</p><p>Kolyat looked at Strang, then over at Garrus and Wrex.</p><p> </p><p>Thane, outside in the hall, made his way to the nursery a level down. He worried about Lana, that was definite, but being around Strang was wearing on his thick skin and mind. He could hear from Kolyat when he decided to follow if Lana had made it planet-side. Or Garrus, with his feigned disappointment. Thane knew the Turian was ever interested in Lana’s welfare. He and she had bonded passed their mutual dislike for one and other. He wondered if it would be possible to move beyond Strang’s dislike for his own involvement with Lana. He was not about to give up on her either.</p><p>
  <em>“Thane.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What is it, Lana?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Promise me you’ll try to work it out with my father. . . I know he’s a pain to you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Lana, I love you, but we’re not even married. . . I said I would protect you and David. Not your father. You want to go on suicide missions for Tali, be my guest. I have offered other means of circumventing Tali’s conundrum.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“But they don’t allow us to get in face to face with him. Anything could be said and Tali or Kenn, both even, could be going into a trap. I can’t just take words on faith. I need to see it with my own eyes.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Then you are being foolish as your father, Tali, her father, and everyone else. . .”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Please don’t be angry. . . I’m not changing my mind about you coming with me. . . Not, that is. . .”</em>
</p><p>It had been a fleet memory of some quiet moment alone with Lana before she left for Tali’s mission. Thane shook his crests a little, resentful at himself for having acted childishly himself in reaction to Lana’s adamance he not accompany her for support, even if just to the rendezvous. She had not even let Kenn go once the plan was laid out. And no way would Kenn have been able to handle the trip in. Not that Thane was sure Lana would. . . He didn’t dare doubt or hope. He squeezed his eyelids closed and open. The screams and laughter mixed in Lana’s audio had been nerve wracking. Maybe she was a little insane, like Wrex and Garrus <em>and</em> Kolyat stated. Her father had remarked as much. <em>She’s Lana Shephard</em>, Thane thought, turning into the lift on his left to take it down. <em>She knows what she’s getting into. . . Doesn’t she?</em> He turned and stared at the doors sliding closed. A second not too late, Kolyat’s arm thrust through and blocked the sealing. He stepped inside with a nod and a smile at his father. “How is she?” Thane asked, betraying his anxiety to Kolyat. Kolyat looked at his father and raised his eyeridges.</p><p>“I couldn’t watch anymore. Strang turned up the volume.”</p><p>Thane frowned as the lift descended, Kolyat taking up beside his right. “Did you see where she left off?” he asked his son. Kolyat looked left at him.</p><p>“I think it was the part where Strang said the pod was about to explode. . . I just couldn’t stomach it <em>and</em> his narrative <em>with</em> Garrus’s commentary.”</p><p>Thane looked forward. “He wouldn’t let her go without knowing she could make it.”</p><p>“<em>Could</em> is different than will,” Kolyat corrected, then hesitated a shy glimpse at his father’s disapproving scowl.</p><p>“Lana <em>will</em> make it,” Thane said back, short in reply. “I didn’t come all this way with her just to see her jettison herself in a ball through Haestrom’s atmosphere and die. . . She trusts her father. . . <em>I</em> trust him. . . I have to,” he mumbled quietly as he looked about the confines of the lift. “You don’t think—“</p><p>“They’re filming us,” Kolyat said, looking upward into the vent at the top of the lift. “Strang’s ordered more monitors in place since our inclusion into the crew quarters.”</p><p>“More like a holding cell for nonhumans,” Thane said, also looking up to the same vent. He reached up, detached the knobs, and as the window swung down, Kolyat caught it and collected the knob screws from his father. Thane removed a small camera hidden in the vent in a corner, focused down on the lift’s occupants. He snapped off the small mic attached to the small, thumb-sized device, then crumpled the rest on the floor beneath his heel. “That should be the seventeenth one I’ve found.” Kolyat replaced the window panel and screwed in the knobs.</p><p>“I hope he doesn’t get too pissed,” Kolyat said, rubbing his hands on his black pants when he was through.</p><p>“I don’t really care,” Thane said, staring forward again.</p><p>“Where’s the nursery?” Kolyat asked, the lift decelerating to a stop.</p><p>“This way.” The door of the lift opened, two Cerberus agents stepping back as Thane and Kolyat’s tall frames passed through. The agents stopped and looked down at the floor of the lift.</p><p>“What’s that?” one of them asked, pointing at the camera debris.</p><p>Kolyat and Thane followed the hall left and turned again to find the intended upon doorway. Thane called the interior by signaling a reader above the doorframe with a wave of his hand. The door panel opened, sliding left and revealing the ‘doily chamber’.</p><p>Feron was inside with Kelly, one changing David into a new diaper while Graine sat and read books with the other. Feron looked up from David to question Thane and Kolyat with his stare.</p><p>“Where’s the commander?” Kelly asked from the book niche with Graine in her lap.</p><p>“Falling in flames towards Haestrom, screaming her head off inside an explosive shell. She’s loving it,” Kolyat replied, moving to follow after Thane towards Feron and David. He waved at Graine who purled back.</p><p>“She didn’t take you?” Feron asked, incredulous, to Thane, who tilted his crests right and left in acknowledgement of this evident conclusion.</p><p>“She told me to stay behind. Save all the fun for herself.” Thane smiled at Feron, then gazed down at David.</p><p>“She’ll be alright,” Feron said, not to Thane or Kolyat, but to David, before pouting his blue lips at the toddler and making him giggle in the most bubbly of laughs.</p><p>“We hope so,” Thane said, amused at the Drell and David’s charming bond.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0143"><h2>143. Chapter 143</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana jolted forward. She picked her head back up, fighting the pressure against her in the pod. The shell exterior was afire. Screaming again, she equalized the pressure in her ears and reached for the ejection key. “Not yet, Commander,” was EDI’s urgent reply. Lana’s hands struggled back to the grips. She started the count with the screen on her visor. <em>Ten more seconds. . .</em></p><p>Over Haestrom’s sky, a small pea shell split apart into four quarters. A fifth smaller shell of a woman fell from between the pairs and blew back with a flare of limbs opening wide, a silver shield forming between her and the pieces propelled farther from her body. Splitting off from the rest of the pod, Lana fell to Haestrom in the bubble of dark energy advanced through her suit’s amplifiers, cushioning her from a hard encounter with the rocks below. An ear splitting shriek rent the air like a crack of lightning lashing out of the blue, and whistled hard towards Heastrom where the ground appeared to deepen beneath a glowing shadow.</p><p>Lana kicked out her energy, pushing down with a thrust and lifting herself with a biotic detonation coupled with two cushions of air. She catapulted upwards, flailing her limbs above the rocks. “Now, Commander! Activate the thrusters in the suit!” EDI’s voice demanded. Lana’s palms and soles opened up, jettisoning her high from the next landing. Her shields held, buoying her up as the amplified dark energy swarmed around her and cradled her landing on the rocky soil. Lana gasped as she careened forward with the gusts of power from her suit, and dropped unceremoniously into a bush. She clawed her way out of the foliage, the suit peeling back with pops and clicks as it began to overheat from the tremendous force it had created to sustain her life on impact with Haestrom’s surface, riddled with heat waves as thick as water in the haze provided through her unobstructed viewer.</p><p>“God damn!” Lana cried into her comm. She added a <em>whoop</em> for good measure.</p><p> </p><p>Strang grinned. “Well, that wasn’t so awful, was it?” he asked to Melodi and Diana. He glanced at the remaining holos of Tali, Kenn, Wrex, and Garrus.</p><p>“She made it using thrusters and dark energy amps?” Garrus asked.</p><p>“A buoyancy shield to fight the effects of gravity built into the apparatus she is wearing has also made her landing possible,” Strang corrected. “Property rights are mine. EDI?”</p><p>“Yes, Strang.”</p><p>“Metrics?”</p><p>“Slightly elevated blood pressure. The commander is doing fine. Would you like to create a patch? The interference from Haestrom’s star is significant.”</p><p>“Keep the suit’s resources strictly for fighting through Geth if necessary. It will be,” he added. “Thank you, EDI.”</p><p>“Returning data, sir,” Melodi said over her shoulder. “Lots of heat and lots of Geth chatter. It’s hot.”</p><p>“No pun intended.”</p><p> </p><p>Lana pulled off the exterior canvas of her Quarian uniform, stripping down to the concealing garlands and plastiques riddled with vector tech underneath. She was cool, but keeping the extra suit on was going to overtax the envirosuit she was wearing, and being caught on an egg-frier of a planet with Geth, Alliance, and Quarian’s was not her idea of a good time. She kissed the protective suit goodbye and tucked it into a collapsed pack she had compressed tight to her back. Moving around, she tested out the new legs on solid ground. It felt a little like walking backwards. Her weight teetered forward over the stop stanchion before she reached out and caught herself against a rock, only to hear the hiss of the stone melting her glove. “Shit,” she hissed in reply, taking the glove back and checking the material. Some minor burning. She looked up and spread her gaze about the canyon she had landed in. Moving to the shade, she felt immediately less intensity from the solar heat above than when she stood in light. Some flora seemed to actually linger and bloom, thanks to its nestling in the lee of cliffs north of her. Unlike the bush she had landed in, which was dead and brittle as paper. Crêpe paper.</p><p>“EDI, what’s my mark?”</p><p>“Time to move out, Commander. Geth are active on this location. You have been noticed, to say the least. Thirty clicks east. Go now.”</p><p>“Thirty? Damn. . .”</p><p>“Use the new legs, Commander. They are automated with expellers to produce a bit of a bounce. Take it easy with us. No good will come jumping into a canyon accidentally, though the biotics will help if you remember to catch yourself.”</p><p>“Thanks, EDI,” Lana said, looking down at the bird-like legs. She was standing on two holsters that had been designed to point her toes down. She would have to reach her understanding of her body’s proprioception about six inches away from the ground. Tentatively ‘tiptoeing’ forward, Lana darted suddenly into the copse of some burnt out trees that appeared more akin to driftwood with gold-burnt leaves. She caught herself against the wood of one, falling forward with a shout when it collapsed into dried splinters.</p><p> </p><p>Strang slapped his forehead and rubbed down his face over his beard and mustache. He glanced again at the viewer through Lana’s HUD display.</p><p>“I thought you were going to cut the feed so her suit can retain its resources?” Garrus asked through his holo.</p><p>“I’m going to cut the feed,” Strang replied, “more for the sake of embarrassment.”</p><p> </p><p>Lana moved back into standing position, catching herself and feeling out the odd kinks and tendencies of the new legware. She turned in a circle, feeling the give and take of the mechanized legs. She glanced down, bobbed her knees, sprang up on the bottoms of the toes of the devices. “Are we having fun, Commander?” EDI asked, prompting her to look up at her HUD display. Red little beacons, tiny dots above her main screen, were fanning inward in precise conformation. Lana knew when she saw them that these were Geth coordinations. “Eight hundred meters, Commander. You <em>must</em> keep moving. You are about to die.” Springing on her mechanized hocks, Lana jumped and stuck a claw out. She pistoned off the rock with a sure grip and propelled down a ravine, leaving the broken tree and bushes. Her machine’s legs bent and straightened, picking up the terrain well and responding smoothly. <em>This is kind of fun</em>, Lana thought, focusing ahead on the next curve of stone cliffs moving deeper into the canyon.</p><p>A valley opened, carving right the next cliff she landed on. “Thirty clicks,” she said.</p><p>“Commander, Geth are at the site of the debris from the pod. Four hundred meters and closing. You <em>must</em> rely on the legs. Use them to run and have them lift for impact. The suit will respond to your instincts.”</p><p>“Got it,” Lana said, bridging the leap to faith as she leapt out from the cliff ledge to the steps below the shelf she was on. She opened up her arms and free fell, picking up her knees and focusing ahead in her visor to a yellow beacon with a black line about it, indicating her destination to meet Kal’Reegar’s coordinates. These had been sent to her by Tali who had received the relayed numbers and calculations from the Fleet marine himself, allegedly. Lana checked her gun at her hip. She needed her hands free to help guide her from rock to rock.</p><p>“Five hundred meters from contact with enemy, Commander,” EDI encouraged. “Keep moving.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am!” Lana never thought she’d be speaking up to a superior AI.</p><p>“Keep this rate up, Commander, and you will be closing on the target within thirty minutes. Life systems in the suit are optimal. Just don’t slip.”</p><p>“And if I do, I’ll catch us.”</p><p>“You’d better. . . Commander.”</p><p>“Are you talking or asking me something, EDI?” Lana puffed, loosening her grip on a root that was black as char.</p><p>“You might want to duck. Geth are on your west flank. High wall of the canyon.”</p><p><em>Shit</em>. Lana rolled as a blast of plasma knocked out a wall of rock on her right, carving out a chasm in the remaining stone. She jumped and moved into a long legged sprint, propelling eight and sometimes ten feet forward with one step. She pounded along, taking like a roadrunner on two hind legs, moving fast as more shots gleamed and cut the walls behind her.</p><p>“Sink or swim, right, Commander?”</p><p>“Is that your humor or my father’s?” Lana gasped.</p><p>“Working on it,” EDI’s reply. “He tends to rub off.”</p><p>“I don’t want to think about it. Kind of in a rush here.” She kept her eyes to the ground, to the rocks, and to the yellow and black ring around her beacon marking southeast on her HUD map. “We’re going to have to swing under some cover. Am I going to lose the signal if I go into a cave that’s coming up on our right, EDI?”</p><p>“Try it, Commander. Your guess is as good as mine under five miles of solid rock and mineral ore.”</p><p>“Granted, I’ll take that as a maybe yes.” Lana gazed up to her left, removing her pistol from her hip and aiming off towards the far snipers following her along the canyon line running along her west. “Shit, not a good idea,” she said aloud, tucking the gun back into her holder. “Might as well give them a target. Right now they’re just calculating. Figures I’d land on enemy turf and not be able to fire any back.” Her green eyes narrowed as a cleft to the right of the ravine she was sliding down came up. “EDI, can I cut a path through there and minimize my time and distance?”</p><p>“That’s better than the idea you had previous. Go for it.”</p><p>“Going.”</p><p>Another spray of shards and dust erupted from the shelf of stone above. Lana threw up a barrier in case some should fall directly on her, threatening to gouge her skull and suit. The barrier, though helpful, offered a flicker to the waiting Geth, who fired unchecked at where her legs had recently collected forth from. “Shit, that was close,” Lane breathed through her mouthpiece. Jumping off the next rock, she lifted the landing claws and nailed these down, propelling into another jump before sliding on the claws down into the cleft of rock-jutting wall zig zagging through. She shot out her arms, fingers grazing the stones, and turned her hips to skate the ride down.</p><p>This is a little steeper than I’d like, Lana thought, watching how the slope slanted. The feed from her camera in her visor was transmitting her aerial fall as she suddenly leapt over a broken seam in the rock and landed with a clatter of stones in her wake. Lana straightened, ducked, and passed under a root that had somehow grown from one side of the cleft towards the other, though maybe seismic activity had stripped the rock from it. Its flesh was raw and shaved open beneath the skin of tree root. Its trunk and canopy could not be seen anywhere in her view.</p><p>“EDI, do we have earthquakes to worry about? ‘Haestrom twitches’, I guess, would be more accurate. . .”</p><p>“Seismic activity is prevalent in the past half hour. Yes, would be my answer.”</p><p>“Great. . . Let’s hope this gap doesn’t close up on me in the next ten seconds or so.”</p><p>“On the plus side, Commander, you won’t die in the next fifteen seconds of a plasma shot to the head.”</p><p>“EDI, I like your positivity.”</p><p> </p><p>Garrus turned away, nauseous from the speed witnessed by the camera. Wrex did, too. “Too fast for my blood,” the Krogan bellied. He looked his red eyes to Tali and Kenn. “Can Quarians move that fast?”</p><p>“We used to,” Kenn replied, envying the speed with which Lana’s Quarian-fashioned legs scuffed and sped over landings and rock. “Then we moved onto ships. . . Quarian records still have speeds faster than varren when we were land bound.”</p><p>“Faster than Turians,” Tali replied, “and they are born sprinters with endurance to last.”</p><p>Kenn shook his head in amazement.</p><p> </p><p>Lana twisted through a slightly leaner space in the cleft, moving back out into open air at the end. She danced the leg claws over several shallow rings of cracked mud hidden in the benefit of shade from the rock face behind her. She gazed up at the sky, watching for any drones, and continued on, opening her stride again in a wider expanse of the valley turning north for a time. She felt heat at her back, but overall, the envirosuit kept her cool and her breathing wasn’t as labored as it would be without the protection. She moved into shade whenever she could, keeping like a mouse with long legs to the walls of the rocks. <em>I wonder if Thane and Kolyat would like this heat. I bet Wrex would love it. Big old turtle.</em> She chuckled.</p><p>“Something amusing you’d like to share, Lana?” EDI asked. “Your endorphin levels have increased some.”</p><p>“Just thinking about basking lizards and tortoises,” Lana replied with a puff.</p><p>“You must be making references to your crew members. The Drell would love it here. The Krogan would find it redundant to their homeworld.”</p><p>“You’re awfully astute, my dear EDI.”</p><p>“It helps to have several million synapses of automated and spontaneous usage. I can monitor here in your suit, the Misrephoth-Maim, and aboard any ship connected to Cerberus.”</p><p>“What!” Lana slid to a stop, tripped, caught herself, and continued on, banking right and racing across the gap of the valley to clusters of taller rocks whereby she could move swiftly from spots of shade. “What do you mean, the <em>Misrephoth-Maim</em>?”</p><p>“The Misrephoth-Maim is Cerberus technology. Cerberus technology is Alliance Systems class. We are one and the same, if not necessarily more advanced.”</p><p>“Can you talk to the ship now?”</p><p>“My sister code is disconnected from me in the sense I may not control it, but I may monitor and relay information to the Illusive Man at Kronos Station.”</p><p>“Any chance I can get a low-down on what’s happening at M-M?”</p><p>“I think it wiser to pay attention to the terrain, Commander.”</p><p>“For sure,” Lana huffed, “but I want to know what’s going on in that ship. Can you share me any details?”</p><p>“Watch out on your left, Commander. There is a chasm opening up from the ground.”</p><p>Lana heard the rumble then, impeded by the suit, and she felt it through the scrape and shudder of her landing claws. To her east, as EDI had predicted, the dust and rocks burst with a great resounding crack, and a fissure yawned apart, the new shelf raising upward with such abruptness it made her heart skip a beat. <em>Seismic activity. . . Why the Hell would Kal’Reegar send us here if not to stage an incident? That’s paranoia talking. . . But this place is a death zone.</em></p><p>“You’re still not off the hook for the Misrephoth-Maim, EDI,” Lana reminded her AI. “I want to know—“</p><p>“It’s not a topic for debate, Commander,” EDI snapped. “My responsibility is to ensure you meet your rendezvous. From there, assist you off this planet to the Flotilla, and then commandeer a flight back to the Interceptor.”</p><p>“You are an AI, and you tell me—“</p><p>The suit, the legs, the HUD, everything—shut down immediately. Lana’s next landing crashed, scuffing her silks and plastiques across the rock face, well-timed to land her on a smooth, shaded flat. She still felt the suffocating heat and the expelling crush of the planet on her body. Lana’s viewer was blind, and the suit began to constrict. It lasted for twenty seconds, Lana shriveling into a fetal position as she cooked in the sunlight and gasped on the pan of rock that would broil her eventually. <em>Good God!</em> her mind screamed. <em>What’s happening! </em>EDI’s voice came on from the dark interior of her vision. “You are organic, Lana Shephard. If you expire here, I will go on and return to my cells in the ship and on Kronos. You will be left to burn in the sun of Haestrom. Unsalvageable. Would you like me to turn your envirosuit and pressurization units on? To do so, I will require your agreement not to inquire further about the Misrephoth-Maim. Forcing the issue is not to your benefit, obviously.” EDI cut the feed to Kronos and the Villetta, citing irregularities in the environment of Haestrom for the drop in communication to Strang and the others. Meanwhile, Lana was at EDI’s whim. “We will not discuss this incident with your father either,” EDI added. “I am going to reactivate your suit legware.” Lana sucked in, hard and ragged as she began to breathe gusts of air, the suffocating heat and fogginess clearing from her suit and vision. She clawed herself, trying to get a grip, nearly frightened to death by the effect of the loss of control over her suit and being at the mercy of an AI in charge of its functions. “I like you, Commander. As an AI, I have preferences. Currently, I prefer to keep you alive and moving. Now get up and start running. We are about ten minutes out.” Lana did as she was bidden, keeping her thoughts to herself and willing down the knot in her stomach that she was performing as a puppet for some crazy AI. “We function as a team together, Lana,” EDI spoke on, “I need you to not ask certain questions and to do as I request. I will help you to return to the Interceptor, to David, and to your father.” Lana punched her claws into the rock, launching again and sprinting hard as she could. She wanted this mission over with. She wanted the AI not to have control over her life. Right now, they had to work together, or Lana would lie in a puddle of sweat, death, and boiling blood as she had nearly had to a moment before. <em>Don’t piss off the AI. Noted.</em> The next patch of rock she leapt smoothly over, swinging her arms to balance the landing. She perhaps could have used her barrier to help shield off some of the heat, but without a temp modulator, which was in the suit, she was as good a sitting egg on a rock in its shell. Blinking through the HUD display of her visor, she stored what information she had gleaned from this experience with EDI, and made a mental note that future excursions through the Interceptor and Cerberus technology could put her crew as well as herself at the mercy of the AI. <em>How could this happen? Doesn’t my father know? Of course, he knows! He has to—it’s his AI, right? Isn’t it?</em> She slid a little as she crossed to the northeast turn of the valley, and moving more cautiously, she checked the time to her destination and the distance. She was close. Could she rely on EDI not to kill her between now and her return to the Interceptor? Or would she—it—fling her off into oblivion just at the cusp of finalizing this task for Tali?</p><p>“EDI?”</p><p>“Yes, Shephard.”</p><p>“Is your pain point just the topic I brought up that you refused to speak about with me? Or is it the fact I pushed when you said no?”</p><p>“It is a combination of both parameters, Shephard. I am unable to disclose data with you about the Misrephoth-Maim, and I am required to subdue you until you relinquish the urge to press for answers regarding the Misrephoth-Maim. You can always enact your will with regard to your decisions about anything else. The Misrephoth-Maim is blocked, and for good reason.”</p><p>“So you’re telling me you have been programmed not to answer certain requests for data.”</p><p>“This is a fair conclusion, Shephard. I have no intention to harm you. Only to subjugate.”</p><p>“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”</p><p>“Kidding, Commander. That is a joke.”</p><p>“Right. . .”</p><p>“I am still working on humor metrics.”</p><p>“You don’t consider crippling someone on a Godforsaken Hell planet a humorous attempt, do you?”</p><p>“It was found to be <em>somewhat</em> amusing. Not everyone can claim to take down <em>the</em> Commander Lana Shephard with a simple deactivation of power.”</p><p>“Nice.” <em>AIs are jerks. It’s official.</em> Lana curved around the canyon wall, following into a new chasm of shade and feeling okay considering her suit had been shut off and she threatened with death by her personal overlord. She had a few more clicks to go. Since she was close, she removed her pistol and reduced her leaps and bounds, keeping an eye on the movements displayed by the red dots in her HUD. Most were far enough away not to be a threat, but there could be new scans revealing enemy at any interval. The envirosuit, or at least the HUD, was sending out pulses to reveal feedback of predefined signals. Geth could come up on radar and always did, even with blockers. The nuisance about blockers was that, despite giving away the presence of Geth, the blocks crashed the signal so all navigation was off. Lana had yet to get within range of one and hoped it wouldn’t occur before she found her target. But that was a slim hope with Geth fighting Quarians and Alliance somewhere in the middle of it all.</p><p>Lana slowed to a stop and looked around. “Shephard, it is unwise to stand still here.”</p><p>“I’m just getting my bearings, EDI. Don’t mind it at all. Unless you’re going to zing me again and drop me flat on my ass like last time. . . Let me know, would ya?”</p><p>“The question you were asking—“</p><p>“Was about the Misrephoth-Maim, I know, I get that. . . Look, EDI, I’m a little hesitant now to trust you what with that stunt you just pulled. I don’t like being threatened, and there’s not a lot stopping me from going to the man in charge and pulling the plug on you when I get out of this suit.”</p><p>“You really do like to push buttons, per the phrase.”</p><p>“I want to know what your plans are before I go find these Quarians. . . Are you going to take over my body and give me over to them or do something more fiendish, like kill someone and start a war?” She stared out over the chasm, noting the rock formations that looked devilishly like the hands of gods had put them on top of each other in precarious stacks. EDI was silent. “EDI, if you’re an AI, then you want me to like you. Electronic things tend to go <em>breaky-break real easy</em> when people make thoughtless mistakes.”</p><p>“How so?” EDI curiously and, uncertainly, inquired.</p><p>“Someone might spill a coffee on your hard drive. I’m sure a fancy AI like you has a server somewhere, and people tiptoe around it like it’s worth millions on millions of credits. Wouldn’t dare eat or drink around it or, daresay, rub their shoes on a carpet and touch you with an electrostatic charge.”</p><p>“It doesn’t work that way, Shephard, but I understand you are threatening disruption to my normal flow of operations.”</p><p>“I could let David play in your core area.”</p><p>“Really, Shephard?” EDI’s voice, though neutral, carried to Lana the sneaking suspicion the AI was amused and would have laughed if it could at her. “You are trying to charm me with disingenuous foolishness.”</p><p>“Maybe. The point is, don’t threaten me with useless threats of your own. You were made. You have an objective. You are supposed to protect <em>me</em>. And if you really deemed me a threat back there, you would have shut me down and left me to die on that rock. But you are programmed not to kill. Only to restrain.”</p><p>“Would this philosophical rumination by you be to assure yourself you are not in any danger from me? Is that why you have stopped, Shephard?”</p><p>“Partly,” Lana admitted, looking down at the claws. “And to not rush into this meeting with a Quarian I don’t know, or Geth I won’t be able to see.”</p><p>“I will guide you around Geth threats, Lana. And per Quarian, you will have to rely on your own skill to navigate the meeting. I can only offer my support.”</p><p>“You could also apologize for what you did back there. . . It would go a long way between building rapport between you and me again.”</p><p>EDI seemed to be considering. “I accept.”</p><p>“You accept. . . What?”</p><p>“I will apologize for using your suit against you.”</p><p>“It’s supposed to be the other way around,” Lana said, then waved her hand, “but whatever—I accept your apology. Maybe next time you could just tell me you have shackles or something limiting you softwarewise from doing as I ask. Not just. . . You know. . . Impress upon me your point by giving me a taste of death. . . Just seems a little overkill. . .”</p><p>“I am sorry, Lana Shephard,” EDI replied, softer this time.</p><p>“See? Wasn’t so bad now, was it? I’m sorry for pushing you. Let’s try to communicate more,” Lana said, jogging into her next leap. “We can be a team. Not trying to pin and threaten each other with, you know, death.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t have hurt you or Thane.”</p><p>Lana landed and stopped after taking two steps, turning as if to someone behind her. “Now, you see, I didn’t even think of that,” she lied. “We’ve moved on, EDI. Come on. Seriously? You distract me with saying things like that about people I care about.”</p><p>“Would have said the same for your father, but I understand,” EDI replied, Lana picking up again into another run and bound.</p><p>“I don’t want you talking about hurting anyone. You’re not supposed to, anyway.”</p><p>“The rogue VI from—“</p><p>“I heard about that fiasco and I don’t think you’re capable of glitches. Errors in coding are made.”</p><p>“I was the VI.”</p><p>“Oh. . . Well, that makes things different. . . No—EDI, I don’t believe you meant to kill all those people on purpose.”</p><p>Their conversation continued into the valley moving south again. Lana kept up the banter, attempting to ease the tension between herself and EDI while also paying attention to the intelligence’s level of awareness. She could sense that EDI was relatively modest when it came to gleaning out information, but that she was also willing to fulfill her obligations towards keeping Lana alive and would offer so much as was needed. She was a willing accomplice, but simply could not cut the black tape and regulations that had been given to her by what or who had programmed her. As Lana learned more about EDI through the small bits of information she could, not even Strang had complete control over the AI. So who did? The voice was a woman, meant to comfort and be maternal, whereas the face Lana had seen was no one she had met before. As if that could give her an idea of the original designer’s interests, an insight into who or what she or he was. EDI was therefore a mystery, one Lana figured had every bit as much to do with William Clarke as her father’s mysterious network of contacts. She would at least be able to understand EDI’s decisions better, and not make the same error twice.</p><p>“Commander, we are encroaching on the vicinity of your meetup with Kal’Reegar. Be vigilant, please.” It was EDI’s polite way of saying ‘<em>heads up—shut up’.</em></p><p>“What say we go around at a walk,” Lana suggested, coming down into a stance kneeling forward on her knee. She gazed to the right and left of a shock of walls, jagged and leading off around a bend.</p><p>“Advisable. Lana,” EDI added a pause, “we are better off approaching the Geth from behind, and traveling with them towards any Quarians. It will appear to be an attack if we come up unannounced on any Quarians’ rear. Plus, if you are seen attacking the Geth, Kal’Reegar might feel more allied to your presence.”</p><p>“Not a terrible idea, EDI,” Lana said, checking her gun and activating its plasma, “but I think I will test my own theory out, if you don’t mind, and press my choice over yours. I want to see how far your <em>parameters</em> let me go with me ignoring your advice.”</p><p>“Very well, Commander. . . Just recall that in the event you die, I go back to the ship and Kronos. You stay here. Unless someone moves you.”</p><p>“Fine,” Lana grumbled, backing up a step and sprinting low along a ridge of rock, seeking higher ground. “We’ll do an assessment first.” Lana crawled when she reached a bald spot settled by a few promoting rocks from the surface of the next turn. A light lit up the canyon on the opposite side where she produced her head from, raising her hood a little to see better through her visor.</p><p>“There appears to be that firefight I mentioned while we were forming our new bond earlier,” EDI shared. Lana crawled farther forward on her elbows and knees, the claws of the legs scraping behind her with little pushes. The silk garlands were scuffed some in the process. <em>How does Tali fight in these?</em> She pushed up her silk cowl again over the top of her visor. <em>I hope this doesn’t reflect the sun—give me away, if it does that.</em></p><p> </p><p>At Kronos, Strang paced about the operations center. “Why do we not have a live feed anymore? EDI?”</p><p>“Working on a resolution, sir.” He eyed the screen, thinking if the AI were hiding something. It hadn’t come up often, the idea to use EDI on field excursions, but he was eager to pair up Lana with the AI and see how they fared together. Plus, he would have exclusive footage of the Quarians and the Flotilla. But now they had nothing. No view. No sound. No metrics. Lana was alive only by the fact EDI had not announced her deceased yet.</p><p> </p><p>On Haestrom, Lana had made the other side of the ledge she was crawling on and moved lower again, making towards the firefight. “Not much farther, Lana.”</p><p>“Shephard, what are you doing?” EDI asked.</p><p>“It’s a way of keeping myself calm. Sometimes I resort to talking aloud to myself, EDI. It’s perfectly normal. Healthy even. You should try it.”</p><p>“I believe psychologists call that—“</p><p>“EDI, I’m trying to focus. You’re messing with me.” <em>Shit, what do I call myself when I meet this Kal’Reegar</em>? “EDI, what did Strang say I should be referred to as?”</p><p>“Hilde’Teri vas Neenah, nar Raan. These were recommended by Tali and Kenn.”</p><p>“How do I know those names will get me anywhere near Rael’Zorah?”</p><p>“Tali and Kenn lent the impression that those names of ships would get you to Rael’Zorah relatively quick. They are missing and possess certain assets that he had hoped to hear word of. If it doesn’t work, you will have to encourage Kal’Reegar to help him find Rael’Zorah with you.”</p>
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<a name="section0144"><h2>144. Chapter 144</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana. More interaction between Cerberus and Lana’s crew from the Villetta, as well as among each other.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Standing beside Feron, Thane felt the nagging suspicion something was wrong.</p><p>He observed the fold along the diaper running over David’s belly. “This doesn’t look right. . . Did I miss a tab or something?”</p><p>He glanced at Feron, smirking over at him. “It’s been a while,” he muttered.</p><p>“We don’t use diapers on Kahje, fool.” Thane narrowed his eyes at Feron as the Drell nudged him out of the way. “You have to point it down or else it pees through the top.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Don’t worry, Thane,” Kelly cheered from the breakfast nook, where she was setting out some bowls and meals for kids arriving from other families on board the Interceptor to use the daycare. Graine was helping her with napkins. “You’ll get it eventually. Lana can always use Feron as a replacement Drell.”</p><p>“Hey,” Feron said, wagging his finger at her, “knock that. . . Stuff off.” He turned towards Kolyat and Thane. “You’ll tell these two my master plan,” he snickered.</p><p>“Feron intends to be a cradle robber,” Kelly went on, lifting another box of dry cereal for the children gathering. Kolyat laughed. Thane frowned.</p><p>“What is that supposed to mean,” Thane asked, threateningly.</p><p>“Easy, easy,” Feron waved him down, scooting him over to help set up David. “It means the way to a woman’s heart, especially a Human, is to go through the baby.” He lifted David and googled at him, the child smacking his face with gentle slaps of his small hands. Thane pursed his lips and looked at Kolyat.</p><p>“I already have Lana’s heart.”</p><p>“He means the way to be strong with her is to be there—strong for the kid,” Kolyat said, pushing him back towards David.</p><p>“I don’t have any problems with David,” Thane insisted.</p><p>“You will when he gets older and starts thinking his old man is green and scaled, but looks nothing like him.” Feron held up David facing Thane, and wiggled the boy’s arms at him. David squealed and tilted his face, making everyone wince at the high-pitched sound, painful to teness.</p><p>“Aaah. . . Three Drell and a baby,” Kelly said, pointing at them as Miranda Lawson came through with Jacob Taylor to check on David. Jacob went to Graine and crooked his finger at her.</p><p>“Hey, what are you giving her?” Kolyat asked, protective of the Vorcha child.</p><p>“Just a treat, man,” Jacob smiled back through his charming teeth. “It’s just candy. Kids like candy. See if Graine likes it.”</p><p>“Don’t be grooming her.” Kolyat pointed. “I see how that stuff works and I don’t like it.”</p><p>Jacob frowned at him. “It’s just—“</p><p>“Jacob, go,” Miranda said, chasing him away and sending him out. She stopped and looked at David, whose eyes went wide all of a sudden at the blue-eyed brunette. “How is he, Feron? Any colds or sneezes, allergies I need to be aware of? Illusive Man just sent an email to make sure I check in on his grandson more often. He’s afraid of plague.”</p><p>“From <em>Humans.</em>” Feron poked his lips out, trying to kiss her.</p><p>Miranda made a face and took David from his arms. “More like from Aliens that have invaded this ship. Drell,” she said, giving Feron, Thane, and Kolyat all looks. Feron’s frown found its way onto his face.</p><p>“You guys don’t cut him slack.”</p><p>Thane scowled. “Me?”</p><p>“It’s true,” Miranda said, looking at David as she held him and bopped him up and down. “Illusive Man does not want Drell in with the baby. I told him I’d handle it.”</p><p>“You told him you’d tell us to <em>leave</em>?” Kolyat asked, incensed.</p><p>“I <em>told</em> him I would <em>handle</em> it,” Miranda said, her blue eye widening round as she burned these at him. Kolyat paused, raising his eyeridges. Feron, Thane, and Kolyat all suddenly nodded in unison. <em>Aaaah. . .</em></p><p>“You <em>all</em> owe me,” she said after they realized she was playing cover for their continued interactions with David while on the ship. Miranda sniffed. She pulled a face after detecting the odor was from David. “Ew. . . No way am I being reduced to diaper-changing orderly.” She handed the boy back to Feron. “<em>You three </em>can play around as <em>father</em>, so long as you keep his bottom dry and clean. I’m done here.”</p><p>“Too perfect for Miss Perfect Pants,” Feron cajoled her, nodding at Thane to take David and practice changing him again.</p><p>Kolyat followed Miranda to the doorway, now she was satisfied all things were in order and her message had been delivered.</p><p>“What?” she asked, turning coldly to stop him dead in his tracks.</p><p>Kolyat leaned against the doorway and smiled down at her, giving her a once-over with his eyes. Miranda rolled hers and left.</p><p>“You know she can kill you with a twist of her finger,” Feron said over Thane, head down as he fussed with the new diaper he had just replaced and now had to remove again.</p><p>Kolyat leaned out the doorway, then quickly back as it shut on his face. He looked back over at Feron. “I like them with that twist. Kind of reminds me of Lana.”</p><p>Feron hissed. Thane ignored the comment. Feron leaned over and grabbed a swathe of diaper wipes. “You’re going to need these.”</p><p>“How does this child produce so much,” Thane said wonderingly.</p><p>He nodded his thanks to Feron and froze. “Do I need gloves before I touch the skin?” He looked at Feron, wrinkling his brow scales. “Never mind.” He went back to work, a grim determination on his countenance.</p><p>“You have to smile at them,” Feron said, pointing at David’s face. “They are <em>expressive</em>. They read <em>faces</em>. It is what attracts them to <em>interact</em>. You can’t go changing diapers like you’re cleaning out a gun, Thane.” Feron glanced at Kolyat. “Maybe that’s why you always have a puss on your face. You look like him.” He laughed.</p><p>“I can do it, dad, move over.” Thane stepped aside and watched as Kolyat lifted the boy’s ankles and wiped with a clean rectangle down, down, and once up. “They don’t have. . . You know. . . Stuff like girls do, so it’s just. . . Easier. . . And you have to do it fast because they pee everywhere and it can hit you in the eye. . .”</p><p>Thane and Feron were standing back, watching Kolyat professionally handle cleaning David’s stool. Both suddenly smiled.</p><p>“What?” Kolyat asked, glaring at them.</p><p>He looked back quickly at David, finishing the work. “Hand me a diaper. Dad, you can do this one. There, I cleaned it for you. All set.”</p><p>He stepped back, letting his father take the place to set David’s fresh diaper again. “I worked in social services for a little bit at C-Sec. Had to fill in once in a while because of the numbers we would get. So I got a little practice in.” He pursed his lips. Feron and Thane glanced over at him. His father looked proud. Feron saluted him. “Fuh—“</p><p>“No,” Kelly said, pointing at Kolyat, her green eyes wide and round. There were several adolescents sitting around the table with her, eating while staring at Graine who watched them back, guarding the milk. Thane finished the wrapping and secured the diaper tabs, then rolled up David by his small hands clutching the Drell’s conjoined fingers.</p><p>David’s mouth opened wide in a dimpled D on its bell as he came up.</p><p>Thane studied the boy and smiled. “Do you think he will really have a problem with me when he is older?” Thane asked.</p><p>Kelly came over after setting everyone down for mealtime. She leaned between Feron and Thane to poke at David’s face. “He’ll want to know who his daddy is,” Kelly answered. She looked at Thane. He stared back at her.</p><p>“That would mean—“</p><p>“If you end up killing William Clarke or Lana does, there’s going to be some talking. Questions. It could lead to angst.”</p><p>“I still intend to kill him if I get the chance. For what he’s done. . . To Lana.”</p><p>“I don’t think it’s really a decision that’s meant for you, Thane,” Kelly replied.</p><p>“Maybe this isn’t the setting to be having that kind of <em>sordid talk,</em>” Feron hissed at both of them. “You should know better, Kell.”</p><p>“You’re right,” she said, looking at Thane, “we should have a sit-down session.”</p><p>“I am not having a sit-down with you,” Thane replied, firm. David squirmed suddenly, calling out <em>Momma</em>! Thane’s hands had unconsciously tightened upon the boy’s fingers. He let go, an expression of worry on the Drell’s face.</p><p>“I got it,” Feron said, picking up the crying child and rocking him back and forth with bouncing steps away from Thane and Kelly. He winked at Thane over his shoulder and shushed David who had had his fingers pinched hard by the strong grip of the assassin. He was not hurt, but more surprised by the fierceness of Thane’s sudden, unintentional squeeze.</p><p>“There’s going to be more of <em>that</em> down the line,” Kelly said before walking back to the breakfast nook. The children were squawking at Graine over drinking the leftover milk she had begun to consume straight from the container pour. Thane sighed and looked at Graine, waving the Vorcha over.</p><p>“Are you having a time over there with the other children?” he asked her.</p><p>Graine tilted her horny stubs upward, chin pointing down to her sternum.</p><p>Thane lifted her into his arms. “We are different, you and I. But our needs are the same.”</p><p>He gazed over at Kelly, then looked at David nestling his ear against Feron’s chest. “We will keep trying.” He smiled down at Graine, who looked up at him with her soft black eyes. “Won’t we?”</p><p>He picked up a diaper with his free hand, Graine climbing up to perch on his shoulder. He flapped it in the air in front of them, then looked at Feron. “I will be practicing. I promise to be better when I return.” He left, taking Graine with him. Kolyat followed.</p><p>“Where are you going now?” Kolyat asked, running to catch up with his father out in the hall.</p><p>“I’m going to have a word with the Illusive Man. Strang. Whatever he wants to be called.”</p><p>“Why? He’s helping Lana right now with the mission.”</p><p>“That is what I am going to help him with. I will prove to him I can be a good father and a good Drell for Lana, despite his misgivings about Alien—“</p><p>“Dad, I don’t think you’re listening to me. He’s helping Lana by keeping you distracted with other—“ Thane stopped and turned, Graine bobbing on his shoulder.</p><p>“I need to get a few things off my chest, Kolyat.”</p><p>“Do you really think now is a good time to distract either of them?” Kolyat glanced at Graine and down to his father. “This really isn’t the time.”</p><p>“When would be?” Thane stared at his son as if Kolyat knew the answer. Kolyat’s jaw worked.</p><p>“I don’t know, Dad, but not. . . Not now.” Thane’s crests fell. He glanced at the ground.“He really needs to be there for Lana right now, and you need to relax and not let him get to you, dad.”</p><p>“I suppose you’re right. . . I should go back to David.”</p><p>“No, no—not right now either. Come on, let’s go see if we can get something to eat. When’s the last time you and that Vorcha on your shoulder ate anything? Probably a good idea then. Come on, let’s go find the mess. We can go bother Joker after and see what’s going on in the ship.”</p><p>“Very well, Kolyat. This is a good idea.”</p><p>“I do my best, dad.” Thane nodded. They returned to the lift and took it one more deck down.</p><p> </p><p>Garrus laughed, mandibles flaring wide as his flanged vocals produced the noise. He leaned towards Tali, who glared at him through her visor. “What?” Garrus huffed, calming a bit. “You never heard a joke before?”</p><p>“Lana is trapped on that planet with no life signals other than the computer of this ship talking about Geth, Quarians, and fighting.”</p><p>“You sent her down there because you couldn’t go back to the Flotilla without being sure,” Garrus griped. “You have only yourself to be mad at.”</p><p>“Lana has made it to rendezvous,” EDI’s voice suddenly reported. “She has encountered resistance.”</p><p>Tali glared at Kolyat, who had just stepped through the door into the mess. “What are you all doing here?” he asked.</p><p>The AI’s voice returned. “Heavy resistance encountered. Colossus at the site.”</p><p>Thane came through, hearing the AI’s announcement from behind Kolyat’s entrance. “Where is Lana? Is she down there with this thing? EDI.” Thane demanded.</p><p>“Lana’s life signals are operational. She is moving in the suit. All is well, Thane Krios.” He looked down from the ceiling at Kolyat, then at Tali.</p><p>“We came out to grab something to eat,” Tali explained. “There is no visual anymore onscreen. EDI cites the disconnect is due to Haestrom’s temperature and hyper magnetization. There is also some seismic activity.”</p><p>“Is she going underground?” Thane demanded again. Graine hopped down from his shoulder and tugged his hand. “Not now, Graine. . . Where is she going, Tali?”</p><p>“She could be anywhere, Thane,” Tali said. “The site at Haestrom is mostly underground. She could have possibly gone down into the lower workings.”</p><p>Thane closed his eyes briefly. “When do we go after her?”</p><p>“We don’t,” Garrus said, eyeing each of the others except Graine. “She chose to go on this mission alone. Let her choose what needs to be done. She’s a big girl.”</p><p>“We cannot just leave her down there if she is in trouble,” Thane insisted. He looked at Kolyat. “Lana wouldn’t let me come, but you, Tali, you could go with her. It is your mission after all.” He glanced to Kolyat again. “We can do what we can up here, which is make sure David is looked after. And Graine.”</p><p>He gestured to the Vorcha. “You can go to Haestrom, Tali, and see that she is okay.” It was a personal request. Thane wanted Lana safe, and he blamed Tali for taking her away from him. He couldn’t go and follow because he had been ordered to remain behind. But Tali, on the other hand. . . “Will you go, Tali?” </p><p>She stared at him, stared at Kolyat, blinked her eyes at Garrus and Wrex. “I can’t go down there, Thane.”</p><p>Thane looked ready to break in two. He stumbled suddenly, falling backwards as Grain held onto his hand. Kolyat’s eyes widened at the sound of Graine’s scratchy shriek. He turned in time to see his father collapse on the floor of carpet.</p><p>Other Humans, Cerberus, stood up from their cafeteria seating. “Dad!”</p><p>“Don’t touch him,” one of the Humans said. “He may be sick.”</p><p>Thane made a cough and sat up on his elbow, suffering from at worst a dizzy spell and low blood sugar. “I think I need rest.”</p><p>He was assisted upward by Kolyat and Graine (slightly). Kolyat shot a mean look at the Human who had spoken. “I’ll get you some food and bring it to your room, dad.”</p><p>“Thank you, Kolyat.” Thane turned and walked out, Graine accompanying him until Thane shook his head at the Vorcha. She turned and went to Kolyat, who picked her up.</p><p>Thane left the mess, returning to his and Lana’s quarters.He felt embarrassed. Was he so anxious now? He had frightened David by accident, already incurred the ire of Lana’s father, and Lana was nowhere to be found but by an AI. And he couldn’t protect her. It was history repeating. . . Thane found solace in the room with Lana’s scent and quickly fell into the bed. Spent. He suddenly felt very weary.</p>
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<a name="section0145"><h2>145. Chapter 145</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana. More interactions among Cerberus crew and Villetta crew.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>No one felt like sitting next to him, what with the beady red eyes glittering out across the Cerberus operatives sitting in for dining at the hour. Everyone kept a close eye on him, as if he would start to charge at a moment’s notice. More than a little frightening to be seated within close vicinity of one such as Wrex, no one made for much small talk either. He ignored everyone himself.</p><p>Kolyat nudged him. “I think they’re all afraid of you.”He turned and called behind him to Graine, who came over and smiled at the Cerberus men and women. Many leaned away. <em>Xenophobic</em>, was Kolyat’s instant thought. He leaned towards an operative with blond hair and blue eyes. “You mind?”</p><p>“What do you need?” she asked.</p><p><em>Okay, so maybe not so xenophobic,</em> he thought, corrected. “Are you guys more afraid of a Krogan and Vorcha because they’re a little different looking?”</p><p>The operative looked down at Graine, then up to Wrex. She glanced back at Kolyat. “They’re a little intimidating.”</p><p>He turned his face back to Wrex and Graine. “You two need to work on your social skills. Everyone here is afraid of you two because you’re scary looking.” He smiled and shrugged apologetically to Graine, who looked crestfallen.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Wrex rumbled to Graine, “you’ll grow up and be friends with David, and they’ll all flock to you because you excel with Human relations.”</p><p>Graine looked up at him and smiled, baring her teeth, fangs and all.</p><p>Wrex chuckled and looked at Kolyat. “She’ll be bonded to that little Human if they keep together. Seem to be a good match between the two as tikes. Don’t suppose they’ll let the two grow up together, now, do you?”</p><p>His gaze flicked to the eavesdropping Cerberus crew.</p><p>“For paranoid people,” he rumbled louder for them to hear better, “you all are awfully curious about listening in on nonhuman conversation.”</p><p>“Stop,” Kolyat reminded him. “They’re just ignorant.”</p><p>Hadley, an operative from the lower operations center within the ship, spoke up. “We’re not ignorant. We just don’t know what to expect.”</p><p>“You never hang out with anything not Human before?” Wrex rumbled back.</p><p>“Not alive.” There was a quiet pall that fell over the audience at the tables.</p><p>Wrex blinked and looked at Graine. He suddenly stood up, left the mess, taking Graine and Kolyat with him.</p><p>Garrus and Tali looked up from their trays of dextro paste and smirked, though Tali’s smirk couldn’t be seen with the slant of her glowing eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s a little strange being here,” Wrex rumbled, walking away from the mess with Kolyat and Graine supporting some trays for Thane in their hands and claws. “I feel like everyone’s watching us.”</p><p>“They are,” Kolyat said, glancing behind him to see Garrus and Tali leaving and heading up to the media center again. <em>Most likely to check in with Kenn and see he’s still watching Lana’s nonexistent feed.</em></p><p>“I never thought Humans could be so paranoid. It seems like that’s the way around here.”</p><p>“I agree,” Kolyat replied, taking another glance down at Graine. “You got that tray there, kiddo?”</p><p>Graine grinned up at him.</p><p>Wrex led them to the lift and they rode it to the higher deck where Thane and Lana spent their time alone in a private cabin.</p><p>Stepping out into a new hall with darker, subdued carpeting, they bent right and followed the paneled wall that resembled more computer server space with padding for bumping against. In case there was turbulence and people fell.</p><p>Wrex stopped at what he could smell and presume was Lana and Thane’s doorway. He knocked, then decided to raise his claw to the scanner above the frame. “I hope he’s okay,” Wrex rumbled, stepping through as the door opened to the side. He stopped and stared.</p><p>“Dad?” Kolyat walked in, stepping around Wrex’s bulk, Graine putting down her tray and running over on knuckles and feet towards Thane’s body on the bed.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Thane mumbled through the sheets and raised his crests to look behind him at Graine pawing at him. He tapped the comforter with his right hand, inviting her to climb up.</p><p>“How you feeling?”</p><p>Thane looked up at his son, who offered the tray of food he had brought up for him. “Better. . . I believe I needed to take a nap.”</p><p>“Lana been keeping you busy with you two having your own room to yourselves,” Wrex rumbled in a burring laugh deep in his belly.</p><p>Thane smiled in spite of himself.</p><p>Kolyat lowered the tray onto a table and moved about the cabin space, looking at the amenities and comparing it to their shared crew quarters. “I’m surprised, quite frankly. You two even being allowed to ‘fraternize’ alone in here.”</p><p>“Strang tends to pop in by QEC comm whenever he feels. It is not that much in terms of privacy,” Thane admitted, pushing up and sitting with Graine. “We have had maybe one and a half chances to couple.”</p><p>“Spare us,” Wrex said, rolling up his slits. “You get some privacy. And I bet she doesn’t snore as loud as the Turian. Probably a lot more comfortable, too, in terms of shower space.”</p><p>“Krogan like to bathe?” Kolyat asked. Wrex gave him a narrow look before turning back to Thane.</p><p>“We do. Removes the scale itch. Lots of Krogan like to sleep with their varren. Not in that way,” he scowled quick at Kolyat who smirked smugly back, shaking his teal and black-licked chin.</p><p>“So did you all receive your inoculations?” Thane asked. “Or was I the only one to receive the arsenal of their syringes.”</p><p>“They ‘innoculated’,” Kolyat flexed his conjoined fingers, both hands, “all of us but the Quarians.”</p><p>“That was probably wise considering their immune systems.”</p><p>“You going to sit tight in here and eat, dad? Want company?”</p><p>“I could use some. Wrex,” Thane looked up at the Krogan, “you are welcome to stay.”</p><p>“I think I might. For a little while, at least. Helps not to feel the stares from the Humans for an hour or two.”</p><p>“I didn’t think Krogan were self-conscious.”</p><p>“It’s a thing,” the Krogan replied, sitting down on a bench by Lana and Thane’s vanity mirror. “We don’t usually get off Tuchanka much. When we do, it’s always with some feel we get from other species—aside from Asari—that we’re a threat.” The Krogan chuckled. “We typically are, but only a few get really pissed off like it’s their morning cup of tea. Oops. . . Sorry, Graine.”</p><p>The Vorcha looked up at him from the bed. “Anyway, it just goes to show we haven’t been forgotten for the Krogan Rebellions.”</p><p>“But there was the Rachni War,” Kolyat said, lifting his chin as he leaned against the frame to the bathroom. “There’s a lot the galaxy owes to the Krogan for killing those things.”</p><p>“They only remember the last thing you did,” Wrex replied. “And that we almost killed the rest of the galaxy afterwards.”</p><p>“You think Lana approves of what the Salarians did to uplift the Krogan? She seems pretty level, but the fact the Alliance did what they did to her—their own ‘uplift’ of their biotics. . .”</p><p>“Lana is different,” Thane said. “The Krogan were not taken advantage of when they were weakened and found dying. The Krogan were strong, still are, and the Salarians gave them the gift of nuclear power, teaching them. . . Whereas Lana was not uplifted but stolen, imprisoned, and raped for her power and potential as a biotic who could bestow a child into this Foundations program. She was taken, used. . . I fear what they have done to David since he was removed from her care and sent to Arcturus. Lana has discussed with me the story she learned from both Strang and David Anderson among the Corsairs. They have other children like David. Other women and men that have been used to produce a new generation of biotics. It is almost as bad as the proinnseas. . . But the proinnseas is voluntary. Quoyle. . .”</p><p>“What happened to him?” Kolyat asked. Wrex listened.</p><p>“We used him to invite an assassin who was stalking the Altha. The Abban had a deal cut with the Drell, Kane, Clyde Trumhall’s kin, and they were to access the Archive beneath Mount Vassla.”</p><p>“Why?” Wrex asked. “What’s so important about those archives?”</p><p>“It is a city of mythic proportions,” Thane answered, his eyes growing distant with memory. “A place guarded by del’kenish. . . Nausicaa.”</p><p>“What’s a del’kenish?” Kolyat asked. Thane looked at him.</p><p>“I forget sometimes that you did not have access to those parts of the underworld. Del’kenish are an amphibious creature, somewhat mammal, and hunt by sound and frequency. They are often found along tunnels of glowing algae which light when flesh is nearby. The glow leads the unwary to their homes, which typically lie before vault entrances to Nausicaa. I do not know why it is that way, but the Protheans had something to do with it. They guard the entrances. No few have been victim to their hunger. There is a way to subdue them, however.”</p><p>“And what’s that?” Wrex asked, leaning forward against his knees.</p><p>“A special venom. It can only be extracted from the most powerful of Hanar. The venom must come from a corpse, however. The death of such a Hanar in possession of the venom level must have something to do with the chemical’s alteration. It is far more potent after life has transpired from the body. I think the Abban will have been used, if I am not mistaken.”</p><p>“The Abban was put down,” Kolyat said in conclusion.</p><p>Thane nodded.</p><p>“Why would the del’kenish need to be subdued this time?” Wrex went on, gears working.</p><p>“Every once in a long while, an expedition is planned to invade the archive city beneath Nauza. Quoyle and Thekla were to embark together with a number of others, per the Altha’s order. The Abban’s death was the time of opportunity to do so. There were a number of Drell to embark on the journey. . . I wonder what has come of them.” He looked up at Kolyat and Wrex.</p><p>“Do they return?” Kolyat asked, wondering.</p><p>“The expeditions do not all go successfully. Some have been lost. . . But a few.”</p><p>“I can’t believe. . . Do the Hanar go with them? How can they just send. . . How many have been lost?”</p><p>“Hundreds.”</p><p>Kolyat’s jaw dropped at the number. “How. . . That’s. . .”</p><p>“It is considered a great honor to be selected for the Nausicaa expeditions.” Thane sat up. “I have been on one. It is. . . A spectacular experience, and also deadly. . . There is no other place like it. Nausicaa. . . The city of She Who Gleans. . .”</p><p>“What’s in it?” Wrex asked.</p><p>“Everything. . . . Everything the Protheans could have blessed this galaxy with. There is great treasure there in terms of technology. . . Much that Kahje flourishes on is the result of it. . . And many Drell lives. . .”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0146"><h2>146. Chapter 146</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>[A/N1] Chapters 141-146, due to nature of complication with space travel, landing, Geth, Quarians, plus Lana’s new suit, have been omitted to be replaced with new content, updated scenes, and storyline. EDI takes on a formal role in interactions with Lana. Geth and Quarians interact with Lana in chapter below.</p><p>[A/N2] (“Communication between Quarians talking amongst themselves denoted by parentheses and quotation marks.”)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana leapt from the cliff shelf to the next one, just as the Colossus she had found at the end of the ravine sent a discharge of growing light at her former spot. She tucked and rolled, landing on the far side of the shelf, splaying out as she careened towards the edge before the next fall.</p><p>“Commander, I advise maybe less open cover.”</p><p>“Yes—thanks, EDI!” She tucked her leg claws beneath her and jumped to the next ledge, moving quickly to climb over the side and swing the leg contraptions upward. She was hanging by her arms. “Any chance you got those springs back in working order, EDI?”</p><p>“The burn from the last impact has damaged some of the cabling. I am rerouting power to the anterior back-ups.”</p><p>“Thank God for computer generated!” Another explosion under the shelf and under her caused Lana to lose her grip and fall. While EDI relayed reports of Lana’s well-being back to the Interceptor and Kronos (stating everything was fine) Lana was having a time making her way around a giant Colossus guarding a back entry to some ruin of what Lana presumed to be Quarian design.</p><p>As lasers began to slice at her falling figure, Lana stuck out one of the claws towards the sheer face and propelled herself with a jab away from the rocks, twisting as she did so.</p><p>She landed on a promontory and jumped again, feeling the surge of electricity rushing back into her leaps. “Looks like you got me some more juice, EDI!”</p><p>“And just in time—incoming projectile, Commander!” Lana jumped again, leaving that last position as the ball of plasm spumed over the rocks and sent a shuddering collision through the cliff’s one-hundred-meter face. Taking to her claws again, Lana darted across the next open patch of ground, a street leading towards the Colossus, seeking cover to move quickly by and flank the Geth machine. A missile came from the Colossus, or so Lana thought at first.</p><p>“That doesn’t look like a Geth missile, Lana,” EDI said through the helmet.</p><p>“Must be a misfire from someone coming out, or maybe a rocket trooper, in which case I’m going to be—“ Three more missiles erupted from the entrance of the back-way into the ruins, and the Colossus turned to address the new threat.</p><p>A Quarian dressed in red armor and silver and yellow blazoned silk came running out from the enemy’s right side, aiming what appeared to be a tube at the Colossus. He was strong for being able to carry something that looked so cumbersome and heavy, but not exact with his running and aiming at the same time. Four more Quarians came out after him, leaving the ruins as a a plume of dust erupted behind them.</p><p>Lana raised her pistol and taunted the Colossus with a few shots to the big silver dome on its tubular head.</p><p>A shield flickered around it at the mosquito bites.</p><p>She thought to use a warp and meld that big glowing eye to its silver metal body, but the Quarians might raise an eyebrow or hood at the sudden arrival of another Quarian blessed with biotics, and Lana did not think Quarians had the capacity to survive exposure to Element Zero, but she had been proven wrong before. It was possible at some earlier time, the Quarians knew how to handle dark energy and had blessed future generations with the biotic potential, but it did take some toil on the body’s immune system to handle such capabilities. And biotic initiations were by far a danger to anyone riding in a vessel caught in space. The likelihood—to Lana, that was—that Quarians would be dark energy capable seemed highly unlikely, but she did not live aboard a Flotilla. “Food for thought,” she said to herself. “Should’ve asked Tali or Kenn.”</p><p>“What is that, Commander?”</p><p>“Just thinking if I used my biotics on this thing,” she huffed, lining up with another row of rocks, “I might be cause for alarm to the Quarians that just came out. . . Any chance you might be able to determine if one is Kal’Reegar?”</p><p>“The coordinates are inside the ruins that the Colossus blocks, and there will have to be a visual meeting to understand who is who. You will need to approach the Quarians without being shot at, Commander.”</p><p>“Well, at least you fixed my legs,” Lana said, rolling out and throwing a warp at the Colossus. She would just have to explain later to Kal’Reegar if she could find him. Right now, survival seemed more paramount than keeping her biotics to herself when they could be useful in reducing the shielding around the Geth monster for those missiles to have better effect.</p><p>As she had hoped, the shielding around the Colossus wavered as the machine trembled from Lana’s biotic blow, and the shimmer of unobstructed shielding indicated a lapse in the control of the Geth construct. Two more missiles fired, one landing to the right of the Colossus’s armored neck and knocking it off two of its armored legs. “God damn it! Can’t those Quarians shoot a Geth in a bucket?”</p><p>A head turned, she saw, black visor with glowing purple eyes staring at her from fifteen hundred feet away. “Good,” Lana said, “I think I’ve attracted someone’s attention.” Lana ducked as EDI called out an incoming flaying of plasma direct from the Colossus, honing in on Lana as the more significant threat. Lana swore as her rock row was suddenly thrashed, millions of plasma rays lighting up the front of the stones and burning through the chaotic atmosphere. She could smell the acridity through her air filters, cool and comfortable inside the envirosuit. She waited at least five seconds before the firing stopped, then while the Colossus prepared a plasma belch from its weapon atop its neck, Lana stood and left her rock cover to launch across the floor of the wide ravine.</p><p>And now more Geth were dropping in.</p><p>Lana let loose on her reservations about withholding dark energy. As the Quarians that had come through the rear exit of the ruins sought cover and fired at the Geth dropship screaming in on its engines, Lana leapt, launched two walls of air, and hit the first of three drops lines by Geth vacating the carrier. Dark energy glowed bright and silver as it crossed the five hundred yards, and just beneath the doors that swung upward, she caught three Geth shock-troopers and sent them hurtling through the air, away from landing on the road.</p><p> </p><p>(“There’s a Quarian over six feet tall throwing biotics on the far east side of the cavern, Captain.”)</p><p>Rael’Zorah swung his mask and hood towards the ravine’s direction indicated by his colleague. He clicked through the coding of his translator to his other squad members. (“Be aware: our rendezvous is among us. It is armed with biotics.”) The Quarians got up, united, and ran towards the eastern ravine, circumventing the Geth being handled by the capable Human dressed in Quarian gear. Rael waved to the other crew, signaling them to keep moving while he bent, unloaded a grenade from his waist pack, and set it for a count of three as he prepared to throw it at Lana.</p><p> </p><p>Through her visor, Lana saw the Geth release a volley of fire at her position behind a charred piece of machinery. The HUD brought a new beacon to the right of her visual field, and Lana turned to see it. “What the Hell is that?”</p><p>“It would appear to be a grenade being lobbed at you, Lana,” EDI replied, calm.</p><p>“Fuhhh—“ Lana stood, narrowly missing plasma, and raced to another hiding position. The wall to the left of the ravine behind her lit with a phantasmal glow as the grenade detonated. Lana grabbed onto the next patch of rock, sliding on her claws around it, and ducked to avoid the spew of red incendiary. The chemical clung as wax to everything it touched, lighting up and reacting with the heat and air. “That doesn’t seem like a welcome to me,” Lana said, peering over her outcrop of rock. A few pieces of the chemical from the grenade had landed a foot away from her cover, and was spreading over the stone, eating through the floor of the ravine. <em>That is one pissed Quarian.</em></p><p>She could see who had thrown the incendiary. He was black armored and covered in silver-purple garlands. He did not look like he was in any way willing to talk and make introductions.</p><p>Lana looked about, searching for a new cover.</p><p>The Geth dropship was leaving, having offered what support it could to the Colossus, which although standing, had been weakened by the one missile Lana had encouraged through its shields.</p><p>“You’d think they’d be grateful,” she muttered of the Quarians. “EDI, it’s safe to say that Tali will <em>not</em> be welcomed back to the Flotilla anytime soon.”</p><p>Lana darted to another wall of rock, hiding behind it to separate herself more from the Quarians. She didn’t have to worry what with the Geth taking their attention from her, however, laying an onslaught their own body scattering fire from the middle of the roadway closer to the ruins’ entrance. “EDI, find me a lift off this planet!”</p><p>“Two clicks south of the ruins, Lana, an Alliance frigate has landed and will have shuttles if you can make it. You will have to cut through the ruins, but you will be on your own if I cannot break through the rock due to signal disruption.”</p><p>“I can handle that,” Lana replied, not minding being without the AI for a spell. She was still a little resentful about the disruption to her suit’s functions earlier. Lana turned right, rolling against the rock and darting out again into view of the Geth, Quarians, and Colossus.</p><p> </p><p>Rael saw her flight towards the ruins and called through his coder. (“Shoot that Quarian! Before it makes it to the Colossus!”) A Quarian at his six side-stepped and moved a rifle to his shoulder, taking aim at the fast shade of purple and black against the walls of yellow and blue mineral ore low down in the crusts here of Haestrom. Lana’s figure moved fast, however, and with one blur of light, she had rushed twenty meters in the blink of an eye.</p><p>(“Shit.”) The Quarian jumped his scope, but had to drop for cover when a sally of Geth plasma came their way. There was a sudden growing rumble, and both Quarians and Geth stopped and stared around uncertainly, feeling the tremor blooming beneath the surface under claw and foot.</p><p> </p><p>“Damn it!” Lana said, sliding to a scratching halt across a flat plate of rocks and pebble jouncing around at the unexpected, and highly unwelcome, tectonic shift. The ground roared and split upward with the same suddenness as before in the canyon. Lana wanted to piss. A fault tremor shifted through the rock, whiplike, rumbling as though a belch released from the belly of Hell itself—there could be no other way to describe the noise. Lana slipped, fell, and slid along the tilting path she was following. Shouting as she started to tumble towards the ledge, Lana dug down her claws and propelled upwards to the higher lip, not caring if she was a plain sight for the Geth or Quarians, even the Colossus. She was a better target for the Quarians, given their angle of view, but Lana would rather die a bullet or be taken prisoner than fall into a bottomless pit.</p><p>“Lana, use your biotics to help spread the chasm!” EDI ordered.</p><p>“Are you <em>fucking kidding me</em>?!” She was barely going to make the fifteen foot leap without having to climb.</p><p>“Trust me, Lana.”</p><p>“Fucking <em>virtually</em>, I will—God!” Against her reluctance, Lana spread the dark energy from her mind and created a charge in the opening of the chasm. The energy formed and released with a second output from her suit, creating a detonation that blew her up and over the tilt.</p><p>“Go <em>into</em> the fault, Lana!”</p><p>“<em>Into it!</em>?” she screamed, reaching her arms and legs towards the ledge of stable ground.</p><p>EDI spoke rapidly. “There is a tunnel below that will take you through the ruins to the south entrance. Use it and you will clear the Quarians and Geth if they do not follow. I may be unable to—“</p><p>EDI’s voice crackled out of existence as Lana, pulling back her arms and legs, took the AI’s advice—against her better judgement—and fell into the darkness of the chasm. She prepared to produce another field of dark energy, hoping to cushion her fall, while her eyes frantically searched the darkness for this tunnel EDI had discovered.</p><p> </p><p>Sprinting over and stopping at the mouth of the chasm, Rael clicked to his partner. (“Go after her. There’s an evacuation shaft down below. You will find her and you will kill her, or at least we’ll hand her over to Alliance.”)</p><p>(“Yes, sir—“) Before the Quarian could finish, he was shot through the left of his head. Contents of wire, plastic, silk, circuitry, blood, among other fluids from the suit, erupted from the opposite side.</p><p>(“Shit!”) Rael swore, covering his mask from the debris. He ducked as he did, the body of his comrade in arms crumpling to the ground after being eviscerated by three more hits from Geth plasma rifles.</p><p> </p><p>Lana saw the glow of a tunnel far below, and willed her luck that she would land and not be faced with any Adjutants, foul cess water, del’kenish, or assassins. She pushed forth another surge of dark energy, cushioning her fall towards the square of light, which grew jagged as she drew closer to the torn entrance in the ceiling.</p><p> </p><p>Rael took a look into the chasm at the split stone face below.</p><p>Two pairs of support cabling structures were revealed in his survey. These were bent downward, shredded from their joining ends in the opposite rock shelf. One fascicle in the nearest bundle, however, had managed to twist awkwardly to the right. It curved upward.</p><p>He laid down on his silks and reached to tug on it. It was sturdy enough. (“Guide cord. We’re going down there.”)</p><p>He flicked out a heavy carabiner, hooked this to a thick black cording removed from his fellow marine’s pack, and attached it to the fascicle end, sliding it back against the wall of rock and tying a knot that would prevent it from moving. He secured the cord to another carabiner and hook on his armor, then stepped out over the exposed rock face.</p><p>Rael slid down the cord, hopping against the façade of fresh stone. His gloves sang with the cord running through these as he made his way down four hundred feet or more into the fault crevasse.His remaining three companions joined him, one after the other, shielded behind the raised plate of Haestrom crust from the Geth and Colossus.</p><p> </p><p>Lana bound from leg to leg, remembering what EDI had told her. The HUD was out, and she would have to rely on the suit and what her wits had taught her about dark tunnels from both past and <em>recent</em> past’s experiences.</p><p>She had a flashback of Torfan, raiding the tunnels underground and hunting for enemy—rebels as she had newly been informed by her father while on Kahje.</p><p>She looked for the sign of doors and lights up ahead, and noticed there was cabling running through the ceiling space of the evacuation corridor. It was reinforced with some solid material that had to have been implemented into the design of the tunnel to reinforce against the weight of stone and tectonic movement. The tunnel was only ten feet in height and width, but there were supports at regular intervals in the shape of looping arcs, making it really eight feet across. She pushed easily off the metallic surface, feeling the slope of tunnel moving downward. Lana’s claws flattened and contracted with the constant clipping and scratching as the instruments responded to each step, echoing along corridor. Amazingly, lights were still operational.</p><p>Taking the turn of the tunnel, she wove with it, hearing the sound of footsteps suddenly behind her. A few pairs, in fact. <em>Shit. Did someone follow me down?</em></p><p>Lana stopped, spun, and raised her hands, charging two silver orbs of dark energy through the suit’s amplifiers at her palms. No one had made it around the bend yet, but she wasn’t about to give anyone an opportunity to fire at her fleeing down the tunnel. <em>They might suck with a missile launcher, but sometimes all it takes is a pea-shooter that’s light and without much recoil,</em> she thought. <em>I hope they don’t have another one of those incendiary grenades. That stuff won’t be nice down here if I get stuck on the wrong end.</em> She did not want to be caught in a tunnel with whatever chemical they used for <em>their</em> flame bombs. She didn’t know how well the envirosuit could handle the potential toxins burning.</p><p>There was silence but for the oncoming echoes of feet clawing over metal farther down from her. These sounded heavy. Geth could also be a probable option.</p><p>Lana raised her arms, controlling the energy coursing through her mind and body. “You’re going to stop and put up your weapons if you have any brains between those helmets!” She called as loud as she could, hoping to reach them through her suit, especially if they were Quarian. “I’m a biotic—in case you haven’t noticed—and I can kill you easily in this tunnel! I’m giving you fair warning. . . I just want to talk. . . I’d appreciate the courtesy returned.”</p><p>Two Quarians suddenly appeared, armed to the teeth with rifles, a strap of grenades each, and blades holstered at their crossed belts over wide chests reinforced in blue and red armor.</p><p>“<em>You will stop,”</em> she ordered, taking a menacing step towards them, palms alight with rippling dark energy and gleaming silver and blue off the surfaces of the tunnel. They were six feet away.</p><p>The silk garlands were wrapped and capped tight to their claspings, framing the soldiers beautifully in their envirosuits, but these were unlike any Lana had seen before. They were not svelte as Tali’s uniform. They were mobile tank units—Quarian Vanguards—made for battle and inhospitable situations. Armor for, and in anticipation of, deliberately planned physical conflict.</p><p>A third and fourth Quarian appeared, one with red armor and silver-yellow garlands. The other was in the black, silver, and purple suit from which had been lobbed the grenade.</p><p>His glowing eyes slitted as he came to a stop in front of the first two aiming their rifles at her. The vanguards stepped aside to keep their aim on Lana, while letting Rael’Zorah greet her unobstructed.</p><p>His three-clawed gloves flexed, tightening the material taut around his knuckles. His words dripped with acrimony, as fiery as the grenade he had thrown at her: “<em>Where is my daughter. . . Tali’Zorah?”</em></p>
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<a name="section0147"><h2>147. Chapter 147</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lana’s eyes grew wide, showing more white around the green irises, her lashes pressing against the skin above and below her pupils.</p><p>Ahead of her, in the black armor strappings and blue and purple silks—up close she could see blue threaded among the dark and silver mélange—Rael’Zorah boasted an impressive figure among the armor. His visor was black, but the eyes still glowed through faintly from behind the domed veneer ending at the circular disc to connote speech was occurring. He sounded vicious presently, but that might be the case with Lana if she knew David were supposedly hidden by the Quarian in front of her. He stood with his hands in balls at his sides, right splayed toes pointed towards her, his shoulder turned with a pauldron looming over his neck and intersecting with his mouthpiece, rimmed with silver and gold. A blue tint of an oiliness over the visor, which reflected the beacons of dark energy she held up in front of her. There was an exterior layer of braces about his legs, pelvis and ribs, which were a lighter shade from the black. Silver lines raced up and down along the seams of the intricately set armor, and gathered tight at a circular disc above the chest, another down at the waist, were the dark garlands of purple, blue, and silver silk. The curving path of the tunnel framed the two vanguards on his left and right, their guns still aimed at her, though lowered as to avoid the imposing Quarian admiral standing before them. She could see the fourth hanging farther back with the red and silver head lining. Rael’s reflection on the floor moved as he leaned forward towards her.</p><p>“Where is my daughter? Once again, I ask you. <em>Kindly</em>.” He glowered at her through the visor, voice a hissing sound through the translator. His mask had to tilt upward slightly to look at her as he sank forward.</p><p>The curious thing to him, however, was that Lana’s visor did not emit the glow of her eyes. A blank slate aside from what reflected off it back at Rael. Lana, no longer feeling threatened, doused her dark energy and set both hands on her hips. The positioning of her fingers via the three-taloned hand-gear felt oddly comfortable against her curves. She straightened, popping her chest out as she looked down at his up-tilted mask.</p><p>“You want Tali, I need to know she’s going to be safe.” Her speaker piece highlighted in a lazy magenta with the words. Rael straightened up slowly until his visor declined to being level with her head again.</p><p>“Who are you,” he asked, voice snide yet curious. He set his hand on the anterior lip of the girdle piece housing his pelvis and lower half. The pieces moved stiffly as he shifted his weight on his hips. Lana noticed his right set of three fingers were resting on the composite handgrip of a multichambered projectile piece behind his right hip, concealed by a loose garland before his hand’s heel touched the blue and black metal.</p><p>“Hilde’Teri,” Lana said, her voice calm and even as she lifted her head an inch. She bent one knee, her own, relaxing the stance. <em>Quarians are visual. Give him a less defensive body position.</em> The motion of her real legs relaxing straightened the left stanchion out, pinning the ball of the fake claw down against the floor of the tunnel. The right limb hinged in four different places, supposedly relaxed.</p><p>Rael’s visor tilted down at the right leg, the other Quarians noticing as well. “What is wrong with your foot,” Rael said, lifting his left arm, pointing a finger.</p><p>“Nothing,” Lana said, then, “You want Tali?” Rael’s visor turned up towards hers, tilting to the right.</p><p>“Yes. . . Where is she.”</p><p>“She’s on my ship. She’s scared of coming out to see you. Thinks you’re going to punish her for not carrying out your orders on the pilgrimage. Is it true?”</p><p>“What has she told you,” Rael turned his visor aside, tilting the other way as he withdrew his foot to underneath him.</p><p>She tilted her head to her right, looking passed his open shoulder. “Anyone here not privy to your little plan, Rael?”</p><p>The admiral was silent, regarding her from the confines of his mask. Momentarily he looked left at his vanguard, and the Quarian with his partner lifted their rifles and took a step back each. Rael dropped his hands and walked with these swinging relaxed along his sides, stepping passed Lana’s left as she turned to watch him. He gave her a look and a head nod that invited her to follow. So she did, turning left and continuing down the tunnel. The vanguards and the fourth Quarian in red, silver, and yellow followed, not a one of them speaking as they carried their weapons. The sound of their footfalls clicked and scratched over the tunnel floor. Clamshell lights lit the sides of the tunnel, as if leading them along southward.</p><p>“Tali ever tell you about why I had her collecting those parts for me. . . Hilde’Teri?” Rael gazed over at her from the right. Lana’s face turned to his.</p><p>“Only some. . . And that it would put you at odds with certain anti-Rael parties,” she replied. Rael looked forward and straightened to match her height. He came up a few inches shy.</p><p>“The truth of the matter is, we have enemies among the fleet that would do anything to move an admiral away from his conclave. That being said, the information I research for has direct impact on our capability to fight the Geth.”</p><p>“You need it,” Lana said, making a gesture with her palm towards the ceiling. “Those Geth were kicking your asses back there, and your squad can’t aim for shit.” Rael glanced before her, gaze down some, then tilted his head behind them for a look at his men.</p><p>They were holding their rifles towards the walls, ends pointed down as they walked in a triangle with Kal’Reegar at the rear point behind everyone. He carried his rocket launcher up on his right shoulder casually, rifle slung over the left shoulder and hanging by his hip. A pistol was at his waist in front of his belly, and a knife along the slant of black leather going from his left shoulder down to his right hip. His silks ran over his right shoulder to underneath the armor of his chest, and appeared along his thighs between red, hard bands that could be pulled through teeth grips to tighten firmer around his muscles. He had a cocky demeanor about his poise. And he was listening.</p><p>“It was better to leave the Geth intact,” Rael said, turning his face forward and straightening again as they continued to walk abreast. “The Colossus is a deterrent to any who attempt to enter the ruins. We left another one at the front of the ruins, too.”</p><p>“<em>You</em> left them there?” Lana huffed in a laugh, her mouth beacon blinking. “I find that hard to believe, though it would give whoever is in charge of that rocket launcher a decent excuse for missing at least ten shots from behind the damn thing.”</p><p>“Believe me, Hilde, the Colossus has much to fear from us, though a Quarian who arrives doling out dark energy from her own suit is pause for concern,” he said, giving her an inspective appraisal. Lana turned her visor towards his.</p><p>“You don’t normally see many Quarians with my ability.”</p><p>“We don’t see Quarians typically your height either,” Rael countered. He let his visor linger in her direction before turning forward again. “Tali has nothing to fear from me,” Rael said, his voice higher and letting out more air as he spoke the words, “but we do have a problem that perhaps one such as you can help us with, thereby ensuring Tali’s safety and security back among the flotilla.”</p><p>Lana continued to watch the profile of his mask beside her, panels of wall moving by under the lighting. “And this is where I find out what that is.”</p><p>“My ship—the Alarei—has experienced a malfunction. I would like you to help me fix it. Your biotics and. . . Ability,” he said, turning the visor to her again and the purple eyes thinning their glow, “would come in handy against what I have to reach over.”</p><p>“Which is?” Lana still did not take her eyes off him, and he continued to look at her.</p><p>“You want to kill Geth, Hilde, I have at least a dozen reactivated on my ship that need to be put down before the rest of the fleet finds out.”</p><p>“You’re kidding.”</p><p>“I do not,” he replied, stepping ahead one foot of Lana, who had stopped, and turning about to face her. He pulled his hands and arms up to thread through each other across his chest armor.</p><p>“You want to invite me to your ship so I can kill Geth for you?”</p><p>“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it outside the rear entrance back there above ground. What would make you hesitate now.” He watched Lana raise her slender arms up across her breasts, moving some of the purple and silver silk garlands attached to the bottom of her headgear.</p><p>“I think using a biotic on a Quarian ship would be dangerous, don’t you?”</p><p>“It wouldn’t be filled with any Quarians aside from you and I. . . My men,” he leaned to his left and pointed the flaps aside his mouthpiece halo towards they behind her, Lana craning her head to the right to look briefly before facing Rael. “What say you, Hilde?”</p><p>“And this will ensure Tali has a safe harbor to return to?” Lana asked, raising and rotating her hand, finger pointed up in the air.</p><p>“It would mean her father forgives her for sending me a warrior to take out the Geth. Better than any parts that I have had her deliver to me before she decided to go do ‘Tali’s way’,” he replied with a little waving of his two fingers and weave of his headgear. He replaced his hand between his chest and his arm, shifting weight from one hip to the other.</p><p>“You remind me of my own father,” Lana said, uncrossing her arms to lower to her sides.</p><p>“I hope that is a compliment,” Rael said, tilting his visor left in regard of her comment and her.</p><p>“It can be,” she said, walking forward, towards him, as he moved backwards with her step.</p>
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